


If This Were a Love Story...

by josiepug



Category: Peaky Blinders (TV)
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Dysfunctional Relationships, F/M, Kid Fic, Pre-Series, Prostitution, Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-03
Updated: 2018-03-15
Packaged: 2018-09-14 09:00:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 16
Words: 40,054
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9172204
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/josiepug/pseuds/josiepug
Summary: ...it wouldn't be Lizzie Stark's.Lizzie Stark fell in love with Thomas Shelby when she was nine years old. Her life was forever altered by it. This is the story of that life.It is not a love story.





	1. If This Were Fated...

**Author's Note:**

> This story is not complete, but I do have several chapters finished, and many of them will work well as stand-alones anyway.  
> I did do some research to attempt to be historically accurate, but without access to extensive information on Birmingham in the early 1900s, I had to do some guessing. Sorry to any history buffs who see something that's blatantly incorrect. Feel free to educate me.  
> Also, you may notice that I'm playing fast and loose with character ages and timelines. But trust me, the show plays faster and looser than I do.  
> Finally, I'm starting to post now, but I have a huge set of exams next week, so I don't know if another update will come before then. After that, things should be quicker. Hopefully.  
> I hope you enjoy the read!

Lizzie fell in love with Tommy Shelby when she was nine years old.   
She didn’t expect it, not until the day it happened. Of course, it wasn’t that she didn’t know about the Shelbys. Everybody knew the Shelby children. They stuck out, and not just because they were Irish and Catholic and Gypsy to boot. They were poor like everybody else, but they were different too, and some kids thought they might have gypsy magics. The parents laughed at this and told their kids that the Shelbys would learn their place. Just look at their father.

Arthur was the oldest, and Lizzie was never in school with him, but she heard plenty. She heard about pub brawls and scams and escapades with whores. She didn’t mind though because sometimes John would have a few sweets at lunch, and give her one, and tell her that Arthur gave them to him. At nine, there was no higher kindness. 

John was alright too. He was in her year at school, but he spent most of his time playing sports with the lads in the yard while Lizzie sat along the side and watched. Sometimes she thought he might be showing off for her, but it didn’t much matter. He hardly ever spoke to her, except to give her sweets. 

Ada might have been less noticeable than the Shelby boys except that she was smart. She was already thirteen, but she was still in school. Lizzie envied how her mother seemed to want her to keep going, believed in educating girls and giving them opportunities. This was funny though because Ada’s mum was a gypsy who had never been to school at all. Still, Lizzie thought that was better than her own mum who had had a baby at Ada’s age and never looked back. Never looked at Lizzie either, except to tell her to close the door behind her and go play in the yard. Even though it was more an alley than a yard.

Until that fateful day when she was nine, Lizzie hardly thought about the last Shelby, Tommy. He was not old like Arthur or in her year like John or smart and pretty like Ada. He was fifteen and hadn’t been in school for years, but Lizzie did see him every day. As the final bell clanged through the yard, mixing with the yells of the freed children, Tommy could always be found at the gate, leaning against it and smoking, waiting for John. No one else picked their children, or siblings, up from school, but the Shelbys were different in a lot of ways, and Lizzie hardly spared a glance for the quiet boy who stood gracefully off to the side.

Years and years later, at times when Lizzie was drunk and lonely and bitter, she would wish she had never found the kitten.

It was a tiny thing, runt-like and grey, with big patches of fur missing, along with one eye. Lizzie found it at lunch, mewling behind a bin. Cats were for catching mice and could usually care for themselves, but Lizzie couldn’t help but put the little beast carefully in her school bag. It was so small and pathetic and had no choice in the probably short and terrible little life it would live. She felt instant affection for it.

She managed to keep her new treasure from her teacher in the afternoon. The cat did not mewl during class, through luck or a hidden survival instinct. Even so, Lizzie was on edge all day, afraid of what would happen if someone else found such a defenceless creature.

The two of them nearly made it.

Lizzie was walking through the yard as the final bell rang out when it happened. The strap on her tattered bag broke and it dropped to the ground. Before she had a chance to scoop it up, one of the bigger, meaner boys had snatched it up. It was Peter, whose father was a minister, and thus would be forgiven by God for all his many misdeeds.

“Oi, look, I’ve got Lizzie’s bag! Wonder if I sold it back to her mother if that would be enough for a fuck!”

One of Peter’s friends corrected him. “I heard Lizzie’s mother does it for free now. Hear ‘bout that army lad lately?” Lizzie made a weak and terrified swipe for the bag, but the boys just laughed. “Pity he ain’t taught Lizzie any fancy army tricks, eh?”

And then the kitten, who had been so good up to this point, yowled.

The boys froze, and then with slowly widening grins, unclasped Lizzie’s bag.

She was petrified, as powerless as the little grey kitten as they pulled it out by its tail and swung it around while it continued to yowl in fear.

Lizzie felt tears begin to crawl down her face, choking her throat and smothering her heart.

“Awwwww, baby Lizzie gonna cry now? Awwww…” They taunted, their voices growing and blending in Lizzie’s panic. The other students stood and watched, glad that it wasn’t them. 

Lizzie hated them for it, for just standing there.

But she was just standing there too.

Until she wasn’t. Buoyed by her rage and her fear and her new cat’s screams, she charged at the boys, grabbing desperately for her kitten, kicking and screaming for all she was worth.

She knew it was a losing fight.

Within seconds, she was down amidst a shower of blows. Her arms felt spindly and weak and her skirt kept flying up. A hand grabbed her boob.

“What the fuck do you think you boys are doing?” The voice was calm, but ice cold. The blows stopped. A teacher must have come. But Lizzie could not place the voice.

Slowly, the boys got off of her. More slowly, she raised herself off the ground, feeling painful scrapes and growing bruises as she did so.

She looked up.

It was not a teacher, not an adult of any kind. It was Tommy Shelby standing before her, cigarette still dangling from his lips as if nothing were happening. He seemed taller than she knew he was, all alone with the sinking sun behind him. Lizzie had never seen such a beautiful sight in the entirety of her short life.

“I’ll ask again. The fuck are you doing?” But he did not say it like a question.

Peter, who normally answered everything with the surety of someone told by God Himself, began to splutter.

Tommy shook the ash off of his cigarette with disdain, staring straight and cold at the boys, who though only a few years younger than Tommy, looked tiny and pathetic under his gaze.

“Give the girl her fucking cat and run. You don’t want me to see where you go.” Sweaty hands thrust a miraculously unharmed bundle of grey fur into Lizzie’s arms before the boys scattered. “Johnny, get rid of the rest of ‘em.” He nodded to the onlookers, and his little brother began to gesture them away, a little sheepishly.

It was not until they were completely alone that Tommy turned his attention to Lizzie.

“You’re one of the whores’ daughters, right? Lizzie.” Lizzie wanted to bridle. She hated when people called her mother a whore, even though Lizzie thought the word herself sometimes, when she lay in bed and hated the world.

But she remembered how Tommy had saved her, and she just nodded.

“Let me see, then.” Gently, he held out his hands, and Lizzie reluctantly passed him the cat. Instantly it began to purr, allowing Tommy to look it over without fear. Lizzie too relaxed.

She had never seen Tommy Shelby up close before. He looked different, younger. She noticed that he had a black eye. She couldn’t imagine anyone daring to give Tommy a black eye, but she had heard stories about Mr. Shelby. Suddenly, she hated Mr. Shelby with blinding fury.  
Tommy handed her back the kitten. “Cats aren’t fucking pets, Lizzie. They get flees. You should let it run off.” She took her cat.

“It would die,” she pleaded, thinking of the gentle way he had held her cat, and willing him to understand.

“As if you could keep it safe.” He snorted, a little cruelly.

“I’ve got to try,” she said, but she thought he might be right.

Tommy turned away from her. For the first time, she wondered what he did all day since he wasn’t at school. Where he worked.

“Thank you for saving me,” she blurted out, and he turned around. He stared at her for a long moment, and she thought his strange blue eyes were a little softer, a little less otherworldly.

“I did it for the cat,” he said at last and walked away. Lizzie was left to make her lonely way back to the whorehouse, clutching the kitten in her arms.

Perhaps she would have been safe from the spell of Thomas Shelby, had that been the end of it. Perhaps she could have raised her kitten and lived her life and known Tommy Shelby only from a distance and never wished for more.

But that was not the end of it.

The next day at lunch, Lizzie found herself on her normal bench, next to the other daughters of women who worked from their beds, far away from the bustle of the centre of the room. She was surprised to feel a tap on the shoulder, and even more surprised to see John Shelby standing behind her, looking nervous.

“Erm, I have an extra sweet.” Lizzie relaxed. Arthur had packed sweets and John had wanted to share. That was not too odd. She took one gratefully.

“Thanks, John.” He watched her eat it. He still looked nervous. “Could you, erm, come with me?” He glanced meaningfully at the other girls, who were starting to stare. Nervous again, Lizzie got up and followed John to an empty corner.

He fumbled with his school bag for a moment before pulling out a small package and handing it to her. “Don’t show no one else.” Then he hurried away.

Lizzie stood staring at the object for a moment, utterly confused. What a strange series of events. Carefully, she unwrapped the cloth. Inside was a small jar of milk, and a little fish wrapped in more cloth. A note fluttered to the ground.

Lizzie picked it up.

“For the cat. Courtesy of Thomas Shelby, Small Heath, Birmingham,” The note read in the most precise handwriting Lizzie had ever seen.

She did not stop smiling all day. Not when she came back to her table to find someone had stolen her lunch. Not when her mother refused to look at her all afternoon. Not when she couldn’t sleep because there had been a football match that day and all the women in the house were busy fucking all the men from the pitch.

No, Lizzie just closed her eyes and smiled, thinking of milk and kittens and pale blue eyes, not knowing for the present that she was lost forever.


	2. If This Were the Worst of Times...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lizzie does her best, and maybe it helps a little.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So my big scary exams from Hell are officially over! I finished the last one this morning and diligently wrote another chapter, and got this one edited for tonight. You're welcome. (We'll see how long this discipline lasts). 
> 
> Also, if you're thinking this is too sad or angsty for you, please get out now because I'm a few chapters ahead and I can tell you it does not get any less depressing. Sorry. Hope you enjoy it anyway.

Only a few months after that, the Shelbys’ mother died. Some people said she got cursed by another Gypsy family, but most thought it was consumption. She went fast, but painful. 

Things went downhill for the Shelbys after that. Their dad got in trouble with the local coppers over some scam and skipped town before he could be brought it. Ada and John left school even though Ada had been close to taking some important exams. Tommy no longer spent every afternoon at the school gate. 

Despite herself, Lizzie was sometimes glad for their misfortunes. It made her feel better about her own life which, aided mostly by her furry new friend, was finally looking up. She called the cat Tomcat, and he seemed to like his name and his place by her side. At night, he would stick his nose in her ear and purr, drowning out the other noises of the house.

Lizzie had just about gotten used to this new normal when, one night, she was asked to go to the Garrison. One of the women of the house had a message for one of the Rollins boys, and Lizzie was chosen to go deliver it, being quick, long-legged and too young to draw too much attention. She went, clutching the note and not even considering opening it. 

The Garrison was packed as usual, loud and smothered in smoke. Lizzie liked it there, despite how scary some of the men could be. It was full of life, more than the BSA factory or even the whorehouse. She delivered her message easily, lingering a bit on the outskirts of the room, unwilling to leave the warmth just yet.

She spotted Tommy and Arthur Shelby sitting on top of a corner table not too far away. They were speaking too quietly for her to hear, probably because the bartender didn’t like underage kids making a fuss. It made him nervous about coppers.

As she watched, Tommy tilted his head to the side, saying something with his face all scrunched up. Arthur put a hand to his mouth, suppressing laughter. Tommy was smiling. Lizzie thought he looked thinner than he had a few months ago, his cheekbones standing out unhealthily against his face. He kept playing with a cigarette case in his hands.

Still, he looked happy. Lizzie felt a sudden pang of jealousy, wondering what it would be like to have brothers, to have anyone at all that she could make laugh.

Without warning, the door to The Garrison banged open, and there stood Arthur Shelby Sr.

There was an instant of total silence, and then: “Well, did you think they’d be able to keep me away forever? Me? Arthur Shelby, trickster of a generation? You did, didn’t you?” He stared around the room for a moment before breaking into a broad smile. “Ah well, have a round on me, lads, and forget your bad judgement.” He performed a flourishing trick with his hat, and coins arced out of it, landing neatly on the bar.

The room erupted into spontaneous cheers. Even Lizzie found herself smiling a little.

But Arthur Sr. was not done with the stage.

“Now while you all swill away my hard-earned cash, I’d like to sit down a moment with the ones I love. Arthur and Tom, are my sons here?”

The crowd made space for Arthur Jr. as he leapt up, all earlier traces of worry gone as he bounded towards his father. “I didn’t bet against you coming home, Da. We all knew you’d be back.”

Arthur ruffled his son’s hair lovingly. “Is that so? What about you, Tom my boy?”

Lizzie’s eyes, as well as those of the rest of the pub, swivelled back to Tommy. The smile of a few moments ago had vanished without a trace. He was still sitting on the table, not moving so much as a muscle to greet his father. “Where’d you get the money, Da?”

Arthur Sr’s face darkened, and Lizzie felt a chill run through her body. A part of her wanted to leave before this went wherever it would go, but by now any move would draw attention.

“Earned it, like the honest man I am, Tom. Earned it for my family.” He tried to keep up his jovial tone, but there was something flinty on the edges.

Tommy stood up slowly, his too-thin frame sliding smoothly off the table. He took a few steps forward, bringing himself into the light. The men surrounding him were much bigger than the boys in the school yard had been, but Tommy squared his shoulders and didn’t appear the least bit intimidated with all of them looking at him, eyes full of judgement and expectation.

Tommy’s eyes were only for his father. “Your family, eh? Is that so? Don’t remember anybody saying we needed you any longer.” He said it with casual confidence, but Lizzie was close enough to see blood dripping from where the cigarette case was now digging into his clenched hand.

The Garrison drew a collective intake of breath. 

Then Arthur Sr laughed.

“You think you’re in charge now, do you? Being Polly’s favourite and all. You hear that, Arthur?” He nudged his eldest son, who looked like he might be sick. “He thinks just because I’m gone a spell, he can get ahead of you and me. I’d watch your back, son. Little Tom’s on the make.”

Tommy had gone pale with fury, his bloodied hand shaking against his leg. “Aunt Pol won’t let you back. She said she wouldn’t.” He paused for a second, wanting to say more. Then he pushed past his father and brother, out the door and into the night.

The Garrison erupted back into life. Lizzie hadn’t realised she had been holding her breath for Tommy. She felt a little light-headed. He had been so brave, standing up to his Da like that. If Lizzie had a Da, she didn’t think she would have been able to do it. And Tommy had even gotten the last word in. She made her way to the door, feeling relieved.

“Oh he’s going to get a right whooping for that one, stupid upstart little tinker. Should know better by that age, ‘specially with his Da.” Lizzie heard one of the men say it to his friend at the table. He sounded almost pleased.

Lizzie stopped dead and then rushed on through the door, barely making it out before she started crying.

What was wrong with the world?

***

When she made it back from The Garrison, having carefully cleaned the tears from her face, she was questioned about what had gone on. She told as best she could. The women all reacted with various levels of scandal and excitement. None of them seemed to care much about Tommy.

Lizzie’s night job was to hold open the door for customers and take their coats. That particular night, she did her job without much diligence. Her mind kept wandering to the Shelby household and whether Tommy’s family had welcomed their father back or not. She didn’t know exactly why, but she felt afraid.

Maybe her distraction was the reason the gentleman’s hat blew away, right out of her hands. Maybe it was fate.

Hastily, she apologised to him, promised she’d get it back, and pushed him into the arms of the working ladies.

Feeling the urge to cry creep up on her once more, Lizzie set off to find the hat. The night was windy, and the hat black, so it took all of her concentration to peer at the dark, slick cobbles.

Someone slammed into her.

Shocked, Lizzie stumbled backwards, only to be caught by a lightning fast arm.

“Shit. Sorry. Didn’t see you, Lizzie.” 

It was Tommy Shelby, and he looked a mess. His hair had matted to his face above his eye, where a brand new black eye was already beginning to bloom. His lip was split and swollen, making him lisp slightly.

As he withdrew his hand from her arm, Lizzie felt a slipping sensation and she realised that it too was still bleeding.

He tried to push past her, but she reached out for him, all thoughts of the missing hat completely gone from her head. “Tommy, what happened?”

“Nothing. I’m just going…” He tried to shake her loose but she latched on again.

“I can help, Tommy. Come on. Why aren’t you home?”

“Get off, Lizzie.” But his voice sounded choked. “Fuck. You’re just a baby. You wouldn’t even fucking understand…” He broke off to draw in a sharp breath, and Lizzie used the opportunity to push him a little towards the whorehouse. 

“I’m not a baby. I’m nine. Come inside.”

He dug in his heels against her like a stubborn horse. “ ‘M not going in, Lizzie. They won’t let me. Can’t pay.” He just about swallowed that last sentence.

Lizzie huffed in exasperation. The whole thing seemed very simple to her. “Don’t be silly. You don’t have to pay. Come, I can get you in the back. I imagine there’ll be a spare room. Doesn’t figure to be a busy night.”

Reluctantly, Tommy let her lead him around the back of the shabby building. Both of them glanced about nervously several times. Lizzie had no explanation ready were anyone to catch them, though she suspected Tommy would think of something. 

Luckily, they encountered no trouble on their way inside, and Dotty’s preferred room was as empty as Lizzie had hoped. Dotty had a sick mother who lived out of town and she often missed work these days. 

“Sit down here. I’ll go get a bowl of water so you can clean yourself up,” Lizzie said, proud at how even and in charge her own voice sounded. She was most definitely not a baby. Tommy must have thought so as well because he sat on the thin mattress without complaint.

Daisy, one of the younger girls, popular because of her blonde hair and big tits, caught Lizzie filling a bowl from the kitchen basin. “What’s that for, then?” she asked.

Lizzie very nearly froze. “Um…special request. Didn’t ask, uh, why.” She widened her eyes, looking as innocent as possible.

Daisy looked suspicious, but obviously couldn’t come up with a reason why Lizzie shouldn’t be fetching water. At least, she didn’t stop her as Lizzie hurried away, sloshing cold liquid all over her hands in her haste.

She didn’t know what made her pause before entering Dotty’s room. Moments earlier she had been practically running, but some undefined instinct made her pull up. She opened the door quietly, peering around the corner.

Tommy Shelby was seated on the bed, just as she had left him. Except that his head was bowed low, his shoulders shaking. He was not making a sound, but Lizzie could see the steady drops of a liquid falling from his face to his upturned, red-stained hands. Lizzie had no way of knowing whether it was blood or tears.

She did not want to enter the room, but she did so anyway, clutching the bowl of water for courage. “Tommy. Here’s some water.”

He started, head coming up with painful speed. Lizzie wondered if he could really see her, eyes swimming as they were with red, black and blue.

“Thanks, Lizzie.” His voice, if nothing else, was steady as he took the water. He dipped in his hands, hissing slightly as the right one turned the water pink. Lizzie should leave him. The women would wonder where she’d gone. She had never found the man’s hat. Everyone would be angry.

“You can stay the night if you don’t make any noise. Won’t be any trouble,” she said instead.

Tommy was focused on splashing water on his face now, but he paused to deliberate. “Alright then. Long as no one comes asking questions.” He sounded so professional about it.

“No one’ll come,“ Lizzie said with confidence she didn’t really feel. She opened the small wardrobe and pulled out a spare blanket, setting it on the bed next to Tommy, busying her hands. 

Tommy stared at the blanket and then looked back up at her. She felt very young under his gaze.

“Why?” _Why help him?_ It was a fair question. The people of Small Heath helped their families, or whatever they managed to pull together to turn into a family, but they didn’t go inviting people they hardly knew into their homes, not without at least charging a fee. Lizzie, whose heart was aching and pounding, and who was also very tired, didn’t know the answer.

“What happened?” she asked instead. Immediately, Tommy tensed, eyes shuttering.

“I said I didn’t want questions.” He drew back towards the stained wall. The cut in his lip kept reopening every time he spoke. A thin line of blood trailed down his chin. 

With some effort, she ripped a piece of fabric from her threadbare dress and pressed it firmly to his lip. He flinched, but let her do it.

Lizzie pulled the now-stained bowl out of his left hand and set it on the floor to prevent it from spilling. Then, she climbed back on the bed and leaned against the wall next to him.

He turned his head away, picked it up and knocked it softly against the wall. “Goddammit. It’s none of your business, Lizzie. Anyway, you already know.” He had closed the eye that wasn’t already swollen shut, and his hand came up to press the fabric more firmly into his lip. Lizzie wasn’t sure whether he was doing it to stop the bleeding or the quivering.

“I don’t understand.”

Tommy exhaled sharply.

“Don’t play stupid. It doesn’t suit you. You were at The bloody Garrison. You saw my fucking father and his goddamn—“ Tommy cut himself off abruptly. 

“I didn’t think anybody saw me,” Lizzie said in a small voice, feeling even stupider than Tommy clearly thought she was. “And I meant after, anyhow. You didn’t leave The Garrison looking like this.”

Tommy laughed grimly, pressing his hand hard enough into his mouth to hurt. His voice was a little muffled because of it. “Don’t be a fucking idiot. What do you think? Do you need me to spell it out for you? Fuck. What does it matter to you? Da showed up and…and Arthur couldn’t have been happier, like nothing had ever gone on. And then John came in and Da of course promised to play football with him which he never actually fucking does but John doesn’t think about that because he’s a baby like you and none of you ever do any thinking except Pol and she thinks and she talks and she yells. But then she does nothing! She fucking does nothing and all Da has to do is say a few words quiet to her and hand her a bottle and make sure she can’t hear when he—shit. That’s that. He’s back. And then he’ll be gone.” 

Tommy was definitely crying now, biting his hand, not making a sound. Lizzie thought it should have frightened her. Generally, when people older than her started to cry, things got very bad for everyone, but Lizzie didn’t feel that way with Tommy. She just felt sad.

“Tommy,” she said. “It’ll be alright.” She reached a hand out to touch his knee.

He batted her away.

“Fuck off, Lizzie. I don’t—just leave.”

She didn’t want to go, but she did, blowing out the candle in silence and leaving him to his soundless tears.

Quietly, not caring that the work was not done for the night and she was sure to get in trouble, she climbed the stairs to the room she shared with her mother and a few other women. It was empty, as it normally was during working hours.

She curled into her cold bed, feeling tears stream onto her pillow. She couldn’t get images of Tommy’s battered face out of her mind. She thought about the day he had rescued her kitten and how strong he was then. She had come to tolerate a world that hurt her, but she hated one that could hurt someone as great as Tommy. 

Tomcat jumped onto her bed, purring sympathetically and nuzzling her face. He always understood when she was sad, and she loved him for it.

Lizzie was nearly asleep when she had the idea. It made her sit up straight in bed and wipe her face.

Silently, she got up once more and picked up Tom, whispering into his raggedy ear. “I need you to help me, if you can. You’ll have to be very good though”. He purred in response and she moved to the door. Checking around each corner for women or customers as she went, she carried Tomcat back downstairs.

Lizzie opened Dotty’s door with her heart in her throat. The ragged breathing coming from the bed stopped abruptly when she entered.

She waited for Tommy to tell her to leave, but he stayed silent.

Heart hammering, she crossed the room and deposited the cat onto his bed. There was a sharp intake of breath, then nothing.

Lizzie went back to bed, but she did not sleep.

When she came downstairs early the next morning, Tommy was gone, the sheets were clean, the blood disposed off. Tomcat was curled on the mattress looking complacent, the only evidence that the previous night had ever occurred. 

There was certainly no hint of it from Tommy. She saw him later that day, strolling around town with his bruises covered and his cigarette case firmly in hand. It would only be a few years until his father would leave on a drinking binge and never come back. Everyone else in Small Heath soon forgot the incident in the pub, and none of the whores ever suspected anything. But Lizzie didn't forget, and sometimes, as she watched Tommy harness the world's chaos in his iron grip, she wondered whether ever thought about that night. 

Years later they did speak of it, but by then, everything had changed.


	3. If This Were Love...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lizzie and love have never had a good relationship.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fair warning, this chapter involves Lizzie's relationship with an OC. But don't worry, this is the only chapter in which he plays a major role. We will get back to Tommy soon. Also, I'm sorry if this chapter is sub par. I've rewritten some bits so many times I can't even look at them anymore. Later chapters are better. I swear. (and now I'm one of those authors preemptively apologising for their work, so sorry again)
> 
> Another warning: this is where we start to earn the M rating. Lizzie is an adult in the eyes of her world, but still definitely underage. There will be sex.
> 
> And finally. It looks like I'm updating about once a week. I will try to get a little faster, and I will try very hard not to get any slower. If I pass a week without posting, feel free to write me an angry comment about it.
> 
> Author's note housekeeping complete. I hope you enjoy the chapter.

Lizzie found that she didn’t mind giving the boys kisses. Duncan Jones asked for one when they were eleven, and Lizzie was happy to. She’d seen it done loads of times, and it made Duncan smile.

When James Meeker, who still sometimes picked his nose, cornered her in the schoolyard, she didn’t mind kissing him either.

After a while, some of the boys got more adventurous. The really brave ones would touch her boobs, and that got them very excited, even though she knew there was hardly anything there.

She knew the consequences too.

The first time someone called her a whore (of course it was Peter), she felt something akin to relief. There. No grace to fall from.

***

“You shouldn’t let people call you that. It’s not right.” Lizzie was thirteen, and it was early March. She would be done with school, probably forever, in a few months. Joe Hunt walked with her as they passed Peter and his friends.

She smiled at him, but didn’t say anything. Being a whore wasn’t so bad. Many whores were nice. And it would let her survive.

“I’m serious, Lizzie. You don’t want those idiots defining you.” Joe was sweet. He was two years older and had a job at the factory. He often told her how one day he would leave, run through the fields underneath the stars forever. Maybe become an actor.

Lizzie told him he should have been born a Gypsy. He told her that dreaming would do her good.

“They don’t define me.” She didn’t say that she’d already been defined by her mother, by her home, by the tricks she had picked up before she knew what they meant. To end the conversation, she pulled him close, stepping them to the edge of the street. “Would it be so bad for me to be your little whore?” She kissed him firmly, pressing him against the wall, and he moaned.

After a long few seconds, he pushed her gently away, holding her face in his hands. “You’re my little Lizzie, nothing else.” Of course, she was many other things, but she let him hold her and pretend that it was only them.

He seemed to believe it.

Later, they sat on the roof above Joe’s room.

“Lizzie, do you ever imagine you were so light you could float up on the smoke from the factory, up so high you touched the clouds?” They were watching the sun slide down the horizon, turning the grime of Birmingham, just for a moment, into something sparkling.

“Mostly, I imagine having my own desk with a stack of papers on it and my own key for the little drawers,” Lizzie said, watching a flock of birds fly higher to avoid the smoke of the city.

Joe was pressed up against her side, head slightly tilted to rest on her shoulder. She was taller than he was, though not by much. “What do you want to do then, with your desk?”

She sighed. “I dunno. I just like the idea of one.”

Joe huffed in affectionate frustration. “Dream a little.”

“Fine, then.” She looked up for inspiration. “I want my desk for the incredibly successful business I run. So successful that it has business cards and offices in London and a charity for children, and I have my desk and a young man who gets me tea and serves my every desire.”

Joe elbowed her in the side.

“Oh, would you like to be my young man?” Joe’s hair glinted blond in the dying sun, his eyes shining with laughter. Lizzie laughed too, even as her heart sank.

She wanted to freeze this moment.

She wanted time to stop. Because as it slipped through her fingers, her dreams, even the silly ones she made up to please Joe, would shatter. She did not believe in flying away on clouds or running under the stars. She wanted a desk because it meant she didn’t work from her bed, and she wanted Joe because she wanted a real life.

She thought he might love her.

She wanted to freeze this moment.

***

The next few months passed too quickly, as she knew they would. She tried not to think of anything beyond the present day. It was something she had always been good at. She went to school, she did odd jobs, she only really looked at Joe. She forgot the sounds of the whorehouse, and the shouts of the drunk and the colour of Tommy Shelby’s eyes.

She was happy.

Her heartbeat warned her that it wouldn’t last.

She didn’t listen. She told herself that there was still time.

On an unusually warm day at the end of April, Joe brought her back to the apartment he shared with five other factory men. The place was dirty in the sunlight. Clearly few women entered. Lizzie knew why she was here.

“You look so beautiful in this light, Lizzie,” Joe said, still sweet, of course. Lizzie blushed, stepping closer.

“Did you invite me in to look at me in the light?” She asked, and he swallowed before shaking his head.

“Elizabeth Stark, would you do me the honour of visiting my bedroom? With me?” He asked in that posh tone he adopted sometimes. 

“The honour is all mine,” she said, to play along and stop her heart from coming up out her throat.

He led her by the hand up the stairs. She didn’t even get a proper look at the bed before his hands were in her hair and her tongue in his mouth.

They stepped backwards together, Lizzie caught in a moment of wonder at how kissing never seemed to get boring. She couldn’t imagine not wanting to do it all day as she fell backwards onto the bed, laughing out of nervous exaltation, landing harder than she expected to. 

And then Joe’s mouth was moving lower, across her breasts, and she let out a little moan of pleasure, reaching out to pull him down, more fully on top of her. He obliged, but not before running his hands up her sides to free her of her dress. Her arms got stuck for a moment, and they both laughed again, but then she was free, and determined to get the buttons off of his shirt. This was hard going with his mouth breathlessly roaming her upper body, but she managed eventually.

His hands circled lower, but never quite where she wanted them. So sweet. “Touch me,” Lizzie said breathlessly, her body certain while her mind remained incoherently jumbled. He found the spot surprisingly easily, and Lizzie just had the brain power left to gasp, “You’ve done this before.”

Joe clearly thought he’d hurt her feelings because he stilled above her. Her gasps turned into a huff. “Don’t care, Joe. Just keep going.” She pulled herself up for a kiss to re-enforce her point, and fortunately, he seemed to get the message.

His hand felt so much better than her own ever had, and it was all she could do not to scream, just on the edge of pleasure and pain. Her hands scraped his back, unsure where to go, eventually making their way down to the top of his pants. She fumbled with the buttons, getting distracted, until he sat up to undo them himself.

In the brief respite, Lizzie began to feel cold. Her heart was still pounding wildly, but she was self-conscious now. Even when Joe got his pants off, his cock looked strange to her. She had seen men’s cocks before, of course, but not like this, not for her.

He did his best to go gently with her. He was so sweet. There was still a sharp twinge of pain as he entered her, though, and they both had to wait a moment before he began to move again. Slow and rhythmic, almost hesitant. Gradually, Lizzie adjusted to the strange feeling, felt herself begin to ride it, to want it.

She didn’t close her eyes, although Joe’s were firmly shut. 

She watched him tense, his face morphing into an expression of utmost bliss as he moved faster and faster. It gave her a little thrill to think she could do that to him, and she moved with him.

He pulled out clumsily before he came, both of them breathing hard.

She was exhausted, and a little sore and uncomfortable, but she smiled into his hair. She felt like she had won something.

“I love you, Lizzie,” he said sometime later, head resting on her chest. Lizzie looked into his dark blue eyes, sensitive and dreamy and so clearly honest in their desire.

She wanted to reply, wanted to assure him that they would be together forever, but Lizzie, unlike Joe, was not a dreamer. She was a poor whore’s daughter in Birmingham. In the romance stories people talked about, that didn’t matter. But hers was not a love story, so she kissed him instead of answering, and closed her eyes to his blue adoration.

***

As soon as school ended, she was put to work at the whorehouse.

The others tried to start her out soft, with nice young men who hardly knew where to put what. But there weren’t many of those, and they didn’t pay as well as desperate older men with money to burn and an eye for young girls.

Not that Lizzie looked that young.

Still only thirteen, she was the tallest whore apart from her mother, and she knew she could order a drink in a bar without any questions. 

She used it to her advantage.

The men paid well. 

She didn’t think of Joe, not while she was working. But after, when she washed herself and counted the change, she thought of his arms around her, of his voice telling her that she was his Lizzie and nothing else. She held onto that. The men who paid gave her money, and they took nothing away.

That’s what she thought, but she was wrong.

She realised it in the middle of July. It was the sort of day which had become ordinary in the last few months. She had worked through the night, slept until midday. She had even gone to the bathhouse before making her way over to Joe’s lodgings. In fact, she was feeling fairly upbeat, if a little worn out.

The door was unlocked, and she found Joe sitting by the dingy window, wearing a customarily dreamy expression. It made her smile and walk across the room to kiss it off his face.

For a moment, his mouth responded, before he once again became distant and listless. Lizzie pulled away. “What’s wrong?” She searched for answers in his expressive eyes. They were darker than she remembered.

“Nothing. They promoted Danny to foreman yesterday.” He almost never talked about the factory.

“Do you want it to be you?”

“No. I don’t want this.” He gestured vaguely at the world. “I don’t want any of this.”

He got like this, sometimes. He looked too far into the future and didn’t see enough there. “Not any of this?” She kissed him again, trying for lightness.

He sighed. “I can taste them on you, Lizzie.” She took a step back. She didn’t need to ask who they were.

“I went to the bathhouse before coming here.” She paused, hating the undercurrent of disgust in his voice, the disgust she couldn’t quite put out of her own heart. “I’ve told you. I do my best.” It sounded weak.

Joe stood up, cupping her face in his calloused hands. “I know.” He closed his eyes for a second. “Oh, Lizzie. What’s happening to our dreams?”

And Lizzie could hear the brief, fragile thing that had been her happiness beginning to crack. Quietly, voice barely audible, she decided to shatter it. “They were your dreams, not mine. I don’t dream.”

He stepped away from her slowly, not understanding. She watched his eyes go from worried to sad to frustrated as they stared at each other, seeing one another more clearly than before. “So you’re happy to be a whore?” His voice cracked a little.

Lizzie laughed unbidden, a harsh sound. “It’s not about happy. It’s just a job.”

“And me?” 

“It’s separate. Completely. They’re just part of work, but I—” There were words that would finish that thought, but she couldn’t find them. There were tears prickling behind her eyes, but they did not want to fall.

“There are other kinds of work. I’ve always told you, you don’t have to.”

That was unfair. “And your job at the BSA? Do you have to do that? What other job could you find?” There was a split second pause and Lizzie knew what he was going to say before he said it.

“We could run away together.”

Lizzie could almost see it, the two of them hitching a ride on a wagon out of town, to someplace where there were no whores or smoke. Maybe they would even be happy. 

But Lizzie was not a dreamer.

“No.” She took a deep breath, stepping away from him. “You know I’m a whore. You’ve always known, and you can’t just run away from that. The clouds can’t take you away, Joe. They’re full of smoke and you’re too heavy.”

“You’re just a coward, Elizabeth Stark!” 

His words lingered on the air as she hurried out the door, stumbling out into bright afternoon sunlight.

He shouted at her from the door as she blundered down the street: “Is that why you’ve never told me you loved me?” 

Heads turned, but Lizzie rushed passed them, tripping on the uneven cobbles, finally crying. She had known all along, but she had never wanted him to find out. She was not worthy of his beautiful dreams. She didn’t belong in anyone’s dreams.

It was her mother who found her at the basin, trying to clean off her face. Dotty was with her, and they both stopped to stare at Lizzie.

“What happened with you?” her mother asked, with little warmth.

“Nothing.” Nothing that anyone could fix.

“Your factory boy not like you whoring?” Dotty asked, and Lizzie could add her to the list of all the things in the world she hated at that moment. Along with her own face, which she knew gave her away.

“What!? You got a boy?” And then her mother slapped her. It was loud against the layer of water on her cheek.

Lizzie was sobbing again, making a scene. She couldn’t help it. She had always been an ugly crier. “Not anymore. Just a whore like you. Be proud, Mum.” She dodged her mother’s second swipe and retreated to her bed, hoping against hope that no one would follow.

Tomcat was already on the bed. She picked him up and stuck her face in his patchy fur. He meowed in protest, and then, as if he understood the importance of the moment, he started to purr, low and rhythmic. Lizzie cried in time with the purring, willing the world to dissolve, just leave her the hell alone.

It worked for maybe five minutes before the door opened. But it wasn’t her mother who came in. It was Dotty. She sat on the thin mattress and put an arm around Lizzie, who couldn’t bear to look at her. Tomcat squirmed out of her lap and retreated to the corner of the bed.

“Your mother just wants the best for you, dear.”

Lizzie choked out a painful laugh. “Don’t be naive, Dotty. Mum doesn’t care.”

But Dotty just squeezed her tighter. “Never accuse an old whore of being naive. I’m certainly not, and your mother isn’t either. She just don’t know how to show it, but she knows the way of things.”

Lizzie sniffed. “How?” 

“Well.” Dotty wiped Lizzie’s tears with weathered fingers and then put her hands over Lizzie’s legs and looked her straight in the face. “Us old whores, we know men. And here’s the thing about them. You always gotta make ‘em pay. Because when they pay, they can’t hurt you any ways you can’t fix.”

That night, Lizzie was back at work. She took Dotty’s words to build a new sense of security, something to replace the shards of childhood. 

Everyone who got a piece of her would have to pay, and even then they’d only be renting.


	4. If This Were a New Beginning...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lizzie mother dies, and she goes to the fair. It could actually be worse.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm posting this on time! (By one minute. Great job, Griffin. Not cutting it close at all.) 
> 
> Not really much to say on this one. It's less sad than some of the others? Still pretty sad.
> 
> Please enjoy the sad.

Lizzie’s mother died when she was seventeen. 

It shouldn’t have surprised her as much as it did. Lizzie knew all too well how easily people broke, especially in Birmingham. But there was something about her mother, something about her cold irrepressibility that made her seem different. Maybe it was some clinging thread of affection blinding her, but Lizzie could never see her mother dying.

Not until she was laid flat by a bout of influenza.

Her mother was young and strong and shouldn’t have taken so ill. No one worried about the illness much at first, and by the time they finally figured they had no choice but to call a doctor, it was far too late.

It was only after, in the hot, stiff air of the sick room, slowly sponging out the scent of death, that the doctor pulled her aside to tell her that her mother had been pregnant.

Lizzie nodded.

Then she paid him with very nearly the last of her money, thanked him for his services and showed him out the door, not caring how hard-hearted he might think her.

She didn’t cry all day.

Not when the other whores tried to comfort her in their sincere, cynical way. Not when the church refused to have anything to do with her sinful mother. Not when she rode with her mother’s corpse to an unmarked, un-sanctified patch of ground, devoid of headstone or marker of any kind.

That night, as she fucked a moustachioed accountant who liked her to moan loudly, she thought about how unfair it was. Her mother would lie forgotten, as well she should. What bothered her was that equally unremarkable people would have their names carved in stone, seen, if not remembered, for generations to come.

Lizzie arched her back and threw her head backwards, wondering if she too would be forgotten like that. She thought she probably would be. After all, in some ways she already was. The man on top of her would not remember her. The whores were too practical to have any use for memory. She hadn’t so much as spoken to Joe in years. There was no one else.

The next day was the Birmingham fair. Lizzie thought it might look odd if she took the day off when her own mother was so freshly buried. She did it anyway. 

To rationalise it, she knew she’d be able to find a few customers, and she certainly wasn’t the only whore going, but that didn’t make her feel any less odd. 

The day was fresh and bright, the fair far enough out of the city to be clear of Birmingham’s constant haze. The smog was replaced with the sounds of children shouting as they ran underfoot. Merchants too yelled over one another, tempting in as much business as possible. And finally the customers added to it all by shouting over them in order to talk to their friends and families. The edges of the mayhem were flanked by Gypsy caravans, brightly painted and enticing people in to get their fortunes read. To top it all, animals, both wild and owned, weaved their way in and out of the crowd.

Lizzie walked around for a long time, content to breathe in the excitement. She recognised a few people as she went, but the fair had drawn a larger crowd than Small Heath could supply, and there were many unfamiliar faces. It was such a relief to be unknown that Lizzie found herself smiling at perfect strangers. She bought a pie to eat as she walked, aware of just how few coins were left in her purse but determined not to care. 

Her mother was dead and she had next to no money, but still she found herself smiling. Life was strange that way.

Eventually, she ended up near the horses. The area was fairly crowded, the rich men who weren’t quite posh enough to attend the real horse shows were trying to strike bargains and avoid getting too much mud on their shoes. Without really thinking, Lizzie made her way to the front of the group.

Tommy Shelby was leaning against a post, cigarette dangling from his mouth as he negotiated with a prospective customer. Short enough for Lizzie to have trouble seeing him through the crowd, he was no less charismatic for it. She found herself stopping to watch as he engaged with the buyer, joking with him, showing off the horse in the makeshift stall with undeniable pride. 

With an effort, she pulled herself away. She had no reason to be standing there. She turned to go return into the anonymous crowd, but caught Tommy’s eye just as she was about to leave. She nodded at him, hoping that would be enough, but his customer was moving off along the line, apparently unready to buy, and Tommy was looking straight at her.

“Tommy.” She crossed over, stepping beyond the prospective buyers to stand next to him.

“Hello, Lizzie. I was sorry to hear about your mother.” Lizzie didn’t ask how he knew. News traveled quickly in Small Heath.

Lizzie wondered if she should put on an act. She looked at Tommy’s face, then shrugged. “It’s really alright.”

He huffed out a little laugh. “Yeah. Didn’t expect to see you here though.”

“You think it looks bad?” She didn’t like that she cared what he thought, but she couldn’t help it.

It was his turn to shrug. “None of my fucking business, Lizzie. But I didn’t think you’d have the money. Thought you’d be working.” She wondered whether it was odd that he paid attention to her finances, but he always had a mind for details.

“Who says I’m not?”

He stubbed out his cigarette. “Fair enough. Don’t think you’ll have much luck with the horses, though.”

She laughed despite herself. “That’s disgusting.”

Tommy was smiling at her indignation, but his eyes were thoughtful. He settled into a more comfortable position against the post. Casually, he pulled out another cigarette. He lit it.

“Why are you a whore, Lizzie Stark?”

He didn’t sound like he cared all that much, but then again sounding careless was Tommy’s default mode. For a moment, Lizzie had no answer. It was such a bizarre question, one that she may have asked herself hundreds of times but never thought anyone else would voice. Particularly not Tommy Shelby.

“Everybody has to do some sort of shit. I’m good at it.” Tommy’s eyebrows rose and Lizzie looked away in case she was blushing. She didn’t know why she wanted him to understand so badly. There had to be a way to say it. “We all sell parts of ourselves.”

She wasn’t sure if that made sense, so she risked another look at him.

Tommy wasn’t smiling anymore. He reached up to pat the neck of his horse. “Unless we sell others.” 

There was a long moment of silence.

“Tommy! Are you working or gossiping?” Lizzie jumped slightly, looking around for the voice. It was Tommy’s best friend, Freddie Thorne, who was making his way over with a saddle hoisted over one shoulder. On his other side was Ada Shelby, walking just far enough away that Lizzie noticed the distance. A glance at Tommy confirmed that he was also looking between Freddie and Ada.

Before she had a chance to come to any conclusions, however, Ada had hurried over to her and grabbed her wrist. “Lizzie! Polly told me she thought you were over here. I have something to talk to you about.” Ada pulled her aside, not even acknowledging Tommy as she dragged Lizzie away. Lizzie went willingly, trying not to let it show that she had no idea what was going on.

They weaved through stalls long past the point where Lizzie was sure they were out of earshot before Ada stopped, dropping her wrist. 

“Sorry about that, Lizzie.” Lizzie just nodded. She had a vague idea of what might be going on, but she and Ada had only spoken about three times in their lives. Pathetic as it was to admit, talking to Ada had always been a bit of an event for Lizzie when she was a child. Ada was just a little older than her, but much prettier and more confident. There had been a time when Lizzie had dreamed about having a sister like Ada. Getting pulled along at a fair in order keep Ada out of trouble made Lizzie feel a like a schoolgirl putting on a charade. It made her a little giddy.

“We’re not actually together,” Ada said it as if Lizzie had accused her of something.

“You and Freddie?”

Ada blushed. “I tell him he’s being so obvious. And it’s not that I wouldn’t want to…but it’ll just be more trouble than it’s worth in the end. He won’t give up though, not until Tommy locks me in a tower or something.” Ada laughed, but it was clear that it genuinely bothered her.

Lizzie didn’t know what to say. Her own problems were worlds away from Ada’s.

“Are you asking me for advice?” The idea seemed ludicrous. 

“Well, mostly I was using you as a distraction, so Tommy doesn’t flip the fuck out. Hypocritical bastard. No one’s telling him not to fuck his girlfriend when I’m trying to sleep.”

“Girlfriend?” Ada shot her a look and Lizzie hoped that hadn’t come out as strangely as she thought it might have. Either way, she didn’t comment.

“A girl who works in the stables. I wish they’d fuck there. I would be much better rested. But never mind that. I wouldn’t say no to some advice about Freddie. I feel so damn naive sometimes.” She huffed in frustration. Naive. Lizzie had never thought of Ada as naive, and she certainly didn’t think of herself as wise or experienced. 

“I don’t know. Whatever you want, I guess.”

Ada gave her another look. Her eyes were significantly less calculating than Tommy’s, but just as piercing.

Lizzie gave in. “Fine. Do you really think it won’t be worth it? With Freddie?”

“It’s just so fucking complicated. I mean he’s Tommy’s best friend. But that doesn’t help because Tommy knows the kind of shit Freddie’s gotten up to, and he doesn’t believe in people changing or growing up. Probably because Arthur still acts like a kid sometimes, but Freddie’s not like that. I know that. But if I go getting Tommy mad at us then where will that leave me? No family, and if Freddie isn’t how I think he is then I’ve got no one at all, and God knows Tommy doesn’t forgive easy.”

Lizzie didn’t have any family. Not since yesterday. She didn’t have anyone who loved her. And she didn’t wish that on Ada. But still.

“He does love you though. And you love him.”

“Yes.” She sounded so certain.

“I think you’re over-complicating it.” 

Ada seemed so relieved to hear Lizzie say it, like that was what she had been waiting for. Of course, Lizzie was far too cynical to actually believe it. Ada wasn’t over-complicating it. The situation wouldn’t resolve itself because she and Freddie were in love. Ada was likely right, and in the end, it would be more trouble than it was worth. 

But it wasn’t yet the end, and later that day, as she made her way back through the happy chaos, Lizzie found herself smiling. She was alone in the world on a beautiful day and there was just the smallest chance that some people got love stories.


	5. If This Were the End of the World...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lizzie is trying to improve her lot in life, but trouble is brewing and the Shelbys are never far away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oops, a day late. I got lazy last night. To make up for it: did you know that in 1910, Birmingham had 2171 establishments licensed to sell alcohol?! That is so much alcohol!!!
> 
> Enjoy the read!

For a while, things got a little better for Lizzie.

The day after the fair, two days after the death of her mother, she started looked for work. Soon enough, she found a tailor who was willing to pay her to work the register. A few months after that, she moved from the whorehouse into her own tiny lodgings. 

It was a strange sort of satisfaction, having a place of her own. It was nice to have a little room that no one but her could touch. She stopped seeing clients once she moved in, unwilling to let anyone else into her space. That left her with barely enough to cover each month’s rent, even working every day of the week, but she didn’t mind that so much. No. It wasn’t that.

She found that she missed the whores.

It bothered her. She hadn’t realised that she had been attached. She was close to very few of them, but she hadn’t known how much she relied on them to connect her to the world. Outside of the customers at the tailor’s, she hardly spoke to anyone any more. She had her own little life, and it cut her off from everything else. Her former colleagues thought she was putting on airs, and everyone else still thought of her as a whore.

It bothered her, but soon matters much more pressing than newfound loneliness began to bear down.

The world was slowly plunging into hell, and it couldn’t wait to take Lizzie with it. 

The descent was slow, but there was no stopping it. As Birmingham city grew in importance and even more factories sprung up to take the precious air, Small Heath was becoming more and more obviously backwards. Lizzie heard about reforms along with the increased demand on the BSA, but neither education nor threats from a growing list of faraway nations seemed to be able to touch Small Heath.

Three years passed.

For all of that time, she stuck to her respectable employment, trying to take some dignity from it. But eventually, as some part of her had always known, it was no longer enough. She was hungry all the time, and the nature of her current employment didn’t make anyone else stop calling her a whore. It was something she was, not a job. Pretending otherwise was fanciful, something which Lizzie Stark was certainly not.

So, it was with a sort of resignation that she began to take back one or two of her old clients, those who said they had missed her and were willing to forego the institution of the whorehouse.

The haven of her little room was soon lost to their grunts and moans. When she unpacked the extra bread for the week, though, she didn’t mind.

Besides, it connected her back to the world. Not that it was a world to which she particularly wanted to belong at the moment.

Britain was building ships. Lots of them. Eastern Europe was neck deep in conflict that Lizzie couldn’t even begin to understand. The whispers from London were growing ever more paranoid.

Her hours at the tailor’s got cut. Times were dark. People were buying less. She took more clients.

In what felt like no time at all, she was on her feet all day and her back all night and only her cat ever wanted her for something that wasn’t a business transaction. The days blended together, manning the register at the tailor’s. The blur of stress and exhaustion turned them into nothing but cold shillings and sore feet. 

All the days except one.

She had been thinking about her rent payment, which was due next week, and calculating whether she could get away with only the two clients over the weekend who had standing appointments. She doubted it, especially if she was sent home early again today. Then she might need to—

“This lot, please.” Two pairs of child’s trousers and some shirts were deposited onto the counter in front of her.

Lizzie started, looking up at the man on the other side of the counter.

It was Tommy Shelby. And he was carrying a child in his arms.

Lizzie stared. Her heart was thudding in her chest. Tommy had girlfriends sometimes, of course, but she hadn’t heard—besides, this child was at least two or three. Then again, there could have been any number of women. He had never frequented the whorehouse, something one of the other whores had liked to complain about when she worked there. But if…

“Lizzie? Are you going to take my money or not?” His voice was lightly teasing, and he bounced the little boy in his arms, making him giggle.

“Right. That’ll be two shillings.” Tommy fished out the money while Lizzie continued staring at the child. He had Tommy’s thick, dark hair. 

“There you are.” He set the money on the register. Lizzie picked it up, trying not to let the situation bother her and failing utterly.

“What’s his name?” Lizzie blurted out, perverse curiosity getting the better of her.

“Finnegan. Da said it was his mother’s family name, back in Ireland.”

Da. Lizzie had heard something about Tommy’s Da coming back around for a visit. She had trained herself years ago not to pay that sort of news any mind. She looked at the boy, a child she had never seen before. Looked at Tommy and the new clothes. The situation began to dawn on her. She tried to ignore the way her heart lightened with dizzying speed. “He’s your brother.”

Tommy laughed. “What, did you think he was my son? I’m not that stupid. Da, on the other hand…“ He let the thought trail away, leaning against the register with somewhat forced casualness. They looked at each other for a moment, remembering a dark room in a whorehouse all those years ago. Lizzie hardly knew him now. They passed occasionally in the street, living in different worlds. Most of the time, he was nothing more than casually polite to her. Most of the time, she thought he’d forgotten.

Tommy opened his mouth, closed it. Then, “I don’t think he even knew his mother’s name. Probably just liked the sound.” He scooped up the new clothes, hitched Finnegan into a more comfortable position and walked out of the shop.

Lizzie spent the rest of the day strangely uplifted by the knowledge that Finnegan was not Tommy’s son. It was a testament to the darkness of the days that it took so little to satisfy her.

On her way home that night, she learned that an archduke had got himself shot. 

From there, things only went downhill.

***

Lizzie took Britain’s declaration of war with a sort of numb resignation. Many people were excited to stick it to the Huns, to prove the might of the Empire and gain some glory with it. But when Lizzie looked around Small Heath, she didn’t see much might. She saw hungry children and drunk adults and not enough to go around.

Still, the men fucked more often and paid better when there was a war coming.

Dotty, who was now the Madam at the whorehouse, offered her a bed to work in while demand was so high. Lizzie couldn’t refuse, and soon she was spending her evenings in the smoke-filled front rooms and her nights on the dark, creaking beds that reminded her of childhood.

It was the night before the first batch of volunteers were set to ship off to France. Lizzie sat at the bar, long legs dripping towards the floor and dress riding high, sipping watered down whiskey and waiting for more than conversation.

The room was over-crowded, clogged with smoke and noise, but Lizzie still noticed when the Shelby brothers walked in. All three of them. Arthur was in the lead, walking as if he owned the place, which, if he’d spent his money on real estate rather than women, he might have done by then. John walked second, looking a little skittish, too young for the place. It took Lizzie a minute to realise her hypocrisy. 

Tommy came last, smiling and relaxed, cool eyes surveying the surroundings. Lizzie, in a sudden fit of bravery that could not be put down to watery whiskey alone, smiled back. To her shock, Tommy made his way over to her.

“Business looks to be going well,” he said, motioning for a drink. Lizzie’s heart skipped a beat. She needed to get a hold of herself. She took a sip of whiskey.

“It’s all the men going off to the War. They need one more good night.” 

“I’d say we’ll have other good nights. The French invented brothels, so I hear.” Lizzie’s brain took a moment to hate a whole country of whores before it settled on the meat of the statement.

“You’ve volunteered.” Her voice sounded flat, and she tried to smile.

“Don’t look so heartbroken,” Tommy said lightly, and she hoped she wasn’t blushing. “Arthur and John are going too.”

“What about Finnegan? What’ll he do?” Lizzie asked, a little thinly.

“Finn? Aunt Polly’s got him. She better with him than I am, anyway. Woman’s touch. And we’ve set up a bit of betting on the side. Nothing massive. Just enough to keep them for a few months while the men are gone. Though part of me thinks Pol won’t let us back. She’s power-mad, that one.” He laughed again. Lizzie loved hearing him laugh.

That laugh would be going to France tomorrow. To war.

Lizzie took a deep breath, fighting to keep emotions that she didn’t even want to acknowledge in check. “Why?”

“To fight for the King, Lizzie. To bring glory to good old mother England, who has raised us up and now in her time of trouble must be defended against those scoundrel Germans,” Tommy’s voice rose into a fair approximation of a posh accent. Then he laughed again and returned to his normal voice. “Nah, I’m joking. I thought maybe I ought to join up, so I fucking flipped a coin.”

Lizzie thought he might still be kidding with her. “Honestly?”

They were sitting very close in order to hear one another, and Lizzie could feel his breath on her face. “I’m a gambling man.”

She couldn’t think of a response, but she couldn’t look away either. The place where their legs touched under the table was on fire. His eyes were sparkling, even in the dim room. Lizzie’s heart was in her throat, her surroundings revolving slowly out of focus.

Mel, a fiery-haired whore who was friendlier with Lizzie than most, sidled up to them, breaking the moment. She put a hand on each of their shoulders and Lizzie flinched. Mel addressed Tommy. “Your brother sent me to make sure you were making good use of your time, but I see I’m not needed.” She threw a wink at Lizzie, and Lizzie hoped, for the second time that night, that she wasn’t blushing like some virgin schoolgirl. 

If she was, Tommy didn’t seem to notice. He took Mel’s hand off his shoulder in a friendly way and stood up. “Oh, I’m not here to take advantage of your other services. I was about to be on my way, actually. It was nice talking to you, Lizzie.” He squeezed her shoulder in a brotherly way and picked his hat up off the bar. “Be a good girl while I’m gone, eh?”

He flashed her one last smile before disappearing into the smoke.

A few hours later, Lizzie found herself being undressed by a barely coherent Arthur Shelby. She was glad for the darkness, running her hands over his body, making him moan, thinking about how tomorrow they would all be gone. The Shelby men who haunted her life. She guided Arthur down on top of her, whispering nonsense, closing her eyes. 

For the very first time, she allowed herself to wonder, as she bit and sucked her way around Arthur’s collarbones, how Tommy would be different, how he would feel.

She was safe in the knowledge that tomorrow it wouldn’t matter. Safe because he would be gone. Safe because he didn’t pay.

She thought she was safe.


	6. If This Were Hell...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The War.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is an interlude (aka an unusually short chapter). But it's the War, and depressing enough without dwelling there. Besides, that means we get more Tommy soon. I only have two chapters of the story left to write, and then I can put the full chapter count up.
> 
> Enjoy the read!

The newspapers called it the Home Front. What a lie. A front made you think of unity, some kind of purpose. But no number of initiatives to aid the troops could put Birmingham back together again.

Practically overnight, the streets were emptied of able-bodied men, the pubs went dark and quiet. The cripples and the beggar children seemed to grow in number every day, taking over the streets with their desperation.

The number of customers Lizzie could find decreased dramatically.

She started skipping meals, scared of not being able to pay her rent. That was even before she went in to work at the tailor shop one day only to find out that her boss didn’t need her anymore. They would be closing up. He had decided to go off to war.

The washerwomen said that it would be over soon. That the Germans couldn’t keep this up.

But then a year passed, and they grew quieter at their work.

Lizzie started taking men on who she would never have dreamed of serving before. Some of them were alright.

Some less so.

One afternoon, about a year and a half into the war that should have lasted months, Lizzie set out to do her shopping, firmly wrapping a scarf around her neck to hide the bruising. She tried not to look at the beggars as she walked down the street, afraid to see her own fears in their eyes. Some of them were soldiers, bits of them blown off.

She bought her food - not nearly enough - without talking to anyone. But she was rushing, and on her way out the door, the potatoes slipped out of her bag. Hurriedly, she bent down to pick them up and wipe off the dirt.

Another woman’s hands, more lined than her own, reached down to help her put them away.

Lizzie looked up. “Thank you, Mrs. Gray,” she said somewhat hesitantly. She had never gotten the sense, in their brief interactions, that Polly liked her much. “You look well.”

That much was true. Clearly, Tommy’s little betting scheme was working out alright. Her shopping bag was much more full than Lizzie’s own and her clothes not nearly so worn.  
But Polly scowled at the comment. Lizzie noticed the dark circles under her eyes. “No need to sound so surprised. I work hard, Miss Stark. On my feet all day running the business.” The remark was pointed.

Lizzie wanted to ask her why she thought she was so much better. At least the men who used Lizzie paid her afterwards. As far as she’d heard, Polly was not so exacting in bed. Besides, if she hated whores so much, why let her nephews run wild with them?

But Polly did work hard, and she had managed to survive just about everything, so Lizzie kept quiet. She settled her bag back on her shoulder. “I pray for the boys in France.” Lizzie cringed internally at the sound of her own voice. Like she was pleading and confessing at the same time.

Polly didn’t bat an eye.

“Would your prayers help them?” She asked coolly to Lizzie’s retreating back. She didn’t turn around. It was a relief that someone had said it out loud.

Lizzie passed a soldier with one leg in the lane. He grabbed at her skirt and she turned, staring for a moment into blue eyes.

Cursing him, she hurried home, trying not to imagine, if that man in the street were a product of a year at war, what would become of the rest of them before this was over.

She did not pray that night.

***

Three years into the war, and Lizzie didn’t remember what it felt like to be at peace. During the day, she did what she could for the war effort: sewing, putting together food packages. It didn’t pay, but it was something.

She hoped.

At night, she found men who would pay to put their cocks inside of her. She couldn’t decide if her job was getting worse, or if it was just another way the world was falling apart.

At Church, they said prayers for the dead. A few people protested that only Catholics did that. Most stayed silent and prayed. Lizzie just closed her eyes.

Every week, there was a list of names at the end of the sermon, of the boys who would never return to Small Heath. The area was small, but the list was long.

“Daniel Taylor, George Beadle, John Owen, Frederick Mooney, John Mooney, Joseph Hunt.”

Lizzie opened her eyes.

The sermon ended. People got up to leave, but Lizzie was rooted to her seat.

Joseph Hunt. _Joe_.

She shouldn’t have been so shocked. She had known that he’d enlisted, just like all the other boys. She hadn’t spoken to him in years. 

Her mind took her back that roof, sitting there with him and swinging their legs, children playing at knowing what the world was like. Playing at having a future. He had wanted to run off with the circus, get away from the factory life.

He had said that he couldn’t imagine growing old doing the same thing every day.

Well, he had finally run off, but he would never grow old.

Lizzie thought of his bright eyes, so trusting in a world that had never deserved it. Even when things ended between them, it was because he had hope.

She leaned her forehead on the pew in front of her. _I’m so sorry, Joe._

She didn’t know what she was apologising for. For not making up with him? For not being a reason to keep him home from the war?

Maybe because she had never been capable of loving him in the first place.

She sat in the church a long time, but no one came to bother her. They assumed she had lost someone dear to her, and she felt a fraud because they weren’t that close, not anymore. Traitorously, she thought of Tommy Shelby, wondered what he was doing over in France. He was living, that was all she knew.

It was all she knew of anybody anymore. Living or dead. Dead or not yet. She didn’t even know which was better.

***

Lizzie didn’t cry often during the war, not like she thought she should. She had known so many of the men who died, intimately if not well. She had touched them and talked to them and listened to their fears. But she didn’t cry when she learned they were buried in some mass grave in a country she couldn’t even imagine. When she heard, more often than not she thought of Tommy, not quite daring to thank God that he was still alive, in case the letter just hadn’t arrived yet.

It made her ashamed, but not enough to stop thinking about him. She knew he was very smart, practical, a born survivor. She also knew that it didn’t matter. Not in this hellish war that should have ended four years ago.

She cried when Tomcat died.

He was old, getting craggier and uglier with each passing year, but she still hadn’t expected to find him under her bed, stone cold, while she was looking for her stockings. 

She cried hard, and then, completely irrationally, she walked to the post office. Asked for the latest news from France. As if they were connected in some way, as if it were an omen. As if she believed in such things.

Her bed was very cold that morning. The realisation that there were no living creatures left in the world who loved her dawned slowly. She stared at the mouldy ceiling, wondering what it was like in the trenches. If it was worse than the life she lived, if it was possible to be more utterly hopeless.

She thought that it was. That made her feel worse.


	7. If This Were Winning...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The war is won. The world is changing. Everything still hurts.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Christ, this chapter makes me sad. But hey...at least there's sex! Actually, even the sex is sad. I'm so sorry, but not sorry enough to stop.  
> I hope you...enjoy?

They won the war. Finally. There were parties and celebrations and it was far too late and Lizzie didn’t really believe in reality anymore.  
She went down to the train station with everyone else from Small Heath on the day their boys returned home.   
She hovered at the edges of the crowd, knowing that she had no real right to be there, no one to kiss and hug and try to hold forever. She thought briefly about Joe, how he wouldn’t be getting off that train, and found that it didn’t make her feel anything at all. She stopped thinking about it.

The hubbub when the train pulled up was deafening, and it was many minutes before she even tried to catch a glimpse of the men she knew—of Tommy. But at last the platform began to clear, and she could see the Shelbys.

Polly was talking animatedly to Arthur as they walked across the platform, clearly barely able to contain herself. She was dressed in her Sunday best, radiant enough to make Lizzie feel self-conscious about her plain clothes and too bony figure. Arthur was matching her gesture for gesture, looking about to buzz out of his skin. John was talking to Ada, a little more subdued. Ada kept looking over his shoulder, trying to see something. As they passed near Lizzie, John called her on it, and she blushed.

But Lizzie’s gaze slid over them all quickly, landing, as it always would, on Tommy. He was walking slightly ahead of the group. Finn, who was far too big to be carried, was getting sort of half-dragged along as he clung to Tommy, talking continuously. 

“Be careful, Finn! Let Tommy alone,” Polly said sharply, and Finn sat down on the ground in a pout.

“’S alright, Pol. Come on, up you come, Finn.” Tommy heaved his little brother back up with one hand, only to pause and rub his shoulder with a slight grimace.

“Did it hurt to get shot?” Finn asked. They were only a few metres from Lizzie now. Luckily there were still enough people around that none of them had recognised her. She felt like she was spying, even though the whole town was out.

“Finnegan!” Polly snapped. Arthur was laughing.

“Aunt Pol said you got medals for being so brave, so that would make it better.”

Lizzie couldn’t see Tommy’s face, but he reached into the pocket of his uniform, pulling something out.

“There you go, Finn. The famous medals. Keep ‘em. They’re yours now. Now let’s be getting home, shall we? I suspect Aunt Polly has set up some sort of reception for us.”

They were moving again, away from Lizzie.

“Will there be cake?”

“I wouldn’t put it past her.”

***

Indeed, there was cake. There was cake and beer and whiskey and a little banner that read “Welcome Home, Small Heath Rifels!” made one of the weaker spellers among the un-enlisted. If the Garrison had been crowded on Armistice Day, it was nothing to how it was now. Every table was full, every chair at the bar. There were people sitting on window ledges and people sitting on the sticky floor, getting trampled by fellow revellers. Lizzie, unsurprisingly, found herself off to the side. This time, though, she didn’t mind so much. She sipped whiskey and watched, trying to make the end of the war seem real.

The Shelby boys were the centre of attention and Lizzie wondered when that had happened. “Raise a glass to Sergeant Major Thomas Shelby!” Someone shouted. Lizzie raised her glass, feeling a little drunk. The whiskey wasn’t helping her grasp on reality. Everything looked too intense, too full of life. There couldn’t possibly be this much life left, could there?

Arthur Shelby roared out another toast. He had been wired all night, determined to enjoy his homecoming to the utmost. It was a little scary, seeing him yelling, standing on the bar. Lizzie remembered the feeling of his cock inside of her and went looking for another drink.

On the way, she bumped into Tommy, getting a good look at him for the first time in…well, in five years. In fact, they were back at the bar together, too close in the jostling crowd. Lizzie had started to think she would never feel anything again, but she could feel Tommy’s eyes on her, feel her heart rate picking up. With a swoop and a hint of nausea, she realised that she had missed the feeling.

“It’s good to see you, Tommy,” she said, her words more honest than they had been in years. Up close, he was paler than she remembered, his eyes seeming to have gone closer to grey than blue. He was thin, too. His cheekbones, always sharp, had become almost alarming. Lizzie had to suppress the suddenly overwhelming urge to reach out and touch them.

She really shouldn’t get another drink.

She did anyway.

“Lizzie.” She had missed how he said her name. Tears prickled at the corners of her eyes and she was forced to look away. 

“Lizzie!” That was Arthur, coming in too close and loud. He slung an arm around Tommy’s shoulder, forcing his smaller brother to brace them both against the bar. “It’s good to see you again. Good to see everybody again! We’re home. We’re bloody fucking home, Tommy! Have a drink!”

Tommy motioned vaguely with the whiskey already in his hand and Arthur nodded with drunken approval. “There’s a lad, Tom. Have some fun! We’re back in the fucking Garrison. Fuck France, I say. Have a drink and a good old English girl for old times’ sake. Sergeant Majors don’t have to pay for anyone, right?”

There was a moment of intense awkwardness as Lizzie made eye contact with Tommy. His face was expressionless. He was letting himself get pulled around by his brother like a rag doll. Lizzie desperately wanted to know what he was thinking, whether he was even listening to his brother’s words, but there was a shutter drawn behind those pale eyes and Lizzie couldn’t tell.

“Who wants another round?” Arthur bellowed, letting go of Tommy at last, and they both looked away. Lizzie downed her drink, and when she looked back up, Tommy had disappeared.

She sighed, got up a little unsteadily, and went to look for someone willing to pay for a fuck.

***

They were the Peaky Blinders now.

Lizzie didn’t know quite how it happened. It must have been building for a long time without her noticing. She wasn’t a betting woman, and she’d never bothered herself with how Polly was making money during the war. Before, she’d heard rumours about the razor blades Arthur kept in his cap, but she’d never seen them. 

Now, they were Peaky Blinders, and the Garrison wasn’t just their pub, it was _their_ pub. People paid them for things, more than betting. Lizzie tried to keep her distance. It was not her affair, and she didn’t like debts of any kind. One thing she had learned from her mother.

Still, she saw them about more, riding horses through the little lanes of Small Heath, newly anointed Kings of the mud and its citizens. Before, people praised the real king, King George. Even during, people were too afraid of the Germans to say anything. Now, though, there were communists and anarchists and the Shelbys. Mostly the Shelbys.

When John Hindley showed up at the factory one morning with cuts all down his face, the washerwomen whispered that he had crossed the Shelbys. When Rosie Munster got a note about owing the Peaky Blinders for their services, she paid up quickly. Davy Wood, from Lizzie’s year at school, took to hanging around Ada Shelby. One day, he simply disappeared. 

None of it mattered to Lizzie until she ran out of milk.

The milk was another one of the incidents she would look back on, thinking that if she’d just learned to take her tea black, she wouldn’t be where she was. But then she thought about everything else, and knew that if it hadn’t happened this way, it would have happened another. 

It was getting late, and she was hurrying to get to the shops before they closed for the night. It was going to be a rare evening without clients, and she had enough money for the moment that she didn’t need to go looking. She desperately wanted to settle down with a cup of tea, maybe do some mending on one of her dresses. 

She walked briskly along the lane, head down, not wanting to attract attention in the gathering darkness.

“Lizzie!” It was Tommy, of course. He always seemed to sneak up on her. She wondered if he did it to other people too, or if it was just her. He had been walking in the other direction before he stopped, cigarette casting a slight glow onto his face.

“Tommy.” She almost called him ‘Mr. Shelby’. It was what the other women called him since the war, but she couldn’t quite make herself do it. She walked over to him, still hardly able to make out his features in the encroaching darkness. The shops would be closing.

“You alright?” he asked, taking the cigarette out of his mouth. 

“Yeah, I’m alright,” Lizzie said, suddenly wondering why he’d called out to her. Why he was walking through Small Heath at nightfall without apparent destination.

“Good. That’s good,” he seemed unsure too, fidgeting with his cigarette case in a way she hadn’t seen since he was fifteen. She thought about how she had met him in a dark lane that night as well. She tried to look into his face, but it was too dark. Stupid thought, anyway. Those days were so long ago. The Shelby boys were kings now, and their father a distant memory.

“Are you?” she asked, suddenly. The silence had gone on too long.

“What?” He wasn’t tracking.

“Are you alright?” She expected him to brush her off. She didn’t expect the laugh, harsh and short. She suspected he didn’t either. It hung in the air. “Come to my place,” she said.

She saw him hesitate, draw back from her slightly. Then, “Alright.”

Lizzie heart stopped, then started again, far too fast. “Okay, then.” She turned, and they walked back the way she had come, milk utterly forgotten.

Under her kitchen light, he looked worse than he had when he’d first come back. He was just as thin and pale, but whereas at first it had looked like fresh hurt, a side effect of whatever they had to do in France, now it had hardened into something more permanent. His eyes were definitely greyer, a thousand times colder than when she had been so impressed with them, that day when she was nine. 

“Would you like a drink?” she asked, for something to say. 

“Alright.” She poured them each a whiskey. After all, she didn’t have any milk.

They sat across from each other at her little kitchen table. It occurred to Lizzie that she shouldn’t be doing this. No one knew where she was, and if anything happened, she knew Tommy had enough coppers in his pocket to keep her from getting any help. He had set his cap on the table, and she could see the razor blades glinting in the light from her lamp.

He drained his glass. He was watching her, thinking about something. Lizzie had no idea what.

“You don’t look well.” He smiled slightly, and perhaps if she hadn’t known him before, hadn’t replayed a million times over that final night in the whorehouse where he had laughed about going to war . Perhaps then his smile wouldn’t look so dead.

“I’ve been working. We’re expanding the business.” He poured himself another glass of whiskey and downed it in one.

“That’s…good,” she said lamely. He didn’t respond. They were staring at each other again. Somewhere, a clock chimed the hour. She could see in his face the moment he made the decision. 

“Kiss me.” She was sure he thought it sounded like an order, but there was a strain of desperation he couldn’t quite hide. Not that it mattered. She knocked against the table, leaning across it until their lips met. 

He tasted like whiskey and cigarettes, like she’d imagined he would. Not so different from the other men if she really thought about it, but she didn’t think. She manoeuvred them around the table without breaking contact with his mouth, trying to get her hands in his hair. The new haircut was strange, not something she’d experienced before. She decided she liked it.

As soon as they were free from the table, his hands were on her blouse, undressing her with surprisingly uncoordinated desperation. Lizzie hardly paid attention. It had been so long since she’d enjoyed this. She found the buttons on his shirt, cursing how many there were. She wanted to touch him, feel his bare skin on hers.

They were moving slowly towards her bed, and it was almost too soon that she was pushed backwards onto it. Her brain barely registered the brief absence of his touch before he was on top of her, both of them now fully naked. She hooked her legs around his back, wanting, needing, to feel every inch of him on her burning body. She let out an involuntary moan of pleasure. It was better than her dreams.

He paused. 

She gasped, opening eyes that she didn’t remember closing. He was staring at her, inches from her face. His eyes were overwhelmingly cold, and his voice was quiet.

“Hush. You don’t have to pretend.” It took her a moment to register what he meant. She stared, trying to think of something to say, wanting him to understand, afraid that he would. But then he was inside of her, pushing deep. She let out a moan that was neither pleasure nor pain but made her insides shake. She gripped his back, finding the rhythm of his thrusts, listening to his grunts of exertion. 

He still hadn’t closed his eyes, so she closed hers because she couldn’t bear to look into the emptiness.

She tried not to think, to do nothing but move against his body, press into his hard angles. Let her body enjoy what it could, free from her mind and everything she knew. She even thought it had worked until he rolled off of her, and she could feel the tears on her cheeks.

By the time she had mustered the energy to sit up, he was already halfway dressed. He fished out his wallet, setting a wad of bills on the bedside table. Lizzie felt sick. She reached for one of her nightgowns, putting it on with numb fingers. When she had finished, Tommy had his coat on, ready to leave. She realised he was staring at her again.

She was beginning to hate his eyes.

“You were crying,” he said, his voice quiet and a little hoarse. “Fuck. I shouldn’t have—I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

“You didn’t,” she said, and if God weighed your sins when you died, then Lizzie was going to Hell on that lie alone.


	8. If This Were the Stuff of Dreams...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lizzie and Tommy's relationship develops, just not really in the way either of them need.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So apparently I don't post even when I've already drafted stuff. I'm so sorry. I feel like I don't put as much time into this because the fandom is so much smaller than my others, but that is really no excuse. I love all of you who read and enjoy my stuff.  
> So just, sorry.  
> Here's another serving of angst.

After the first time, things got more professional. 

Tommy would send a note to Lizzie’s lodgings, delivered by one of the poor children who hung around Small Heath and would do anything for penny. Lizzie would reply with a confirmation and then negotiate her schedule if she had a client booked already. If they complained about the time change, she brought up the Peaky Blinders in the vaguest terms possible. It scared her how quickly that shut them up.

The appointments were inconsistent, but generally every week or two. It was abundantly clear to Lizzie, who had spent more than a decade observing these things, that Tommy had absolutely no interest in her. He needed to fuck, he didn’t want to put any energy into a relationship, and Lizzie was there. The first whore that had come to mind. An honour, to be sure. 

She thought that with time she might be able to accept that. She tried to.

But there were two things that bothered her, after he had come in, taken off her clothes (and sometimes not even completely), fucked her mechanically, and left her with a wad of cash. One was that he always overpaid. He wasn’t the first man to do this, but it generally meant they were trying to get a favour out of her or get her to fall in love with them. Those were obviously not Tommy’s reasons. She had thought at first he wasn’t doing it intentionally, but when she tried to hand some of it back, he had shaken his head at her, something strangely like disappointment in his eyes. Well, if he was disappointed that she didn’t understand, that was fair enough. She didn’t understand at all.

The other thing only came up after their routine had been going on for close to two months. She ran into Mel in the street and they got to talking. Mel was one of the few whores from the whorehouse who didn’t resent her taking customers at her own lodgings and was happy to share the latest gossip. Lizzie appreciated her kindness, but even so had been only listening with half an ear until Mel mentioned the patronage of the Shelby brothers.

“We’ve started taking the Shelby brothers through private rooms. John and Arthur make anyone who ain’t a Blinder nervous, and it’s bad for business. Of course, without the Shelbys coming, we probably wouldn’t have a business, so there’s that.”

It took Lizzie a second to realise what was odd about that statement. “John and Arthur. Not Tommy?”

Mel gave her a strange look. “Did you really forget? Tommy doesn’t pay. Doesn’t have any interest in women since the war. I’d have thought you would have noticed. You always notice him.”

Lizzie was so distracted by the first part of Mel’s statement that she didn’t even blush at her perceptive implication. She wrapped up the conversation quickly after that, unable to focus on anything else Mel said. 

Tommy never went to the whorehouse, and apparently no one in the rumour mill of Small Heath, with the potential exception of his family, knew that he came to Lizzie at all. She didn’t understand, and she couldn’t let it go.

And that was it. If it weren’t for those two things, she liked to tell herself she could have treated Tommy like a regular customer. She was perfectly aware that he found her to be a regular whore. She thought she could have taken his money, let him fuck her and got on with her life. It wasn’t like he was the first customer she had found attractive, but she could always let go of it. It was just work.

It was not work when she lay on her bed, sick of hearing other people’s orgasms, and reached her hand under her dress to touch herself. It was not work when the images that came to her as she worked up her pleasure were of Tommy, memories of his body on hers, of the sounds he made, even of the uneven ridges of the healing bullet wound on his back. It was not work, and she hated it.

***

It was two o’clock in the morning, nearly four months after the end of the war, and Lizzie was taking a bath. It had been a long day, and her last client had left only a few minutes before. It was a precious luxury to use this much hot water, but Lizzie needed it. She closed her eyes, sinking as low as she could in the water, for once thinking of absolutely nothing at all.

There was a knock on her door.

It rang out in the deep silence of the middle of the night. Lizzie started, irrationally afraid until she realised that no one coming to attack her would have the decency to knock first. Still, her heart thudded in her chest. No good news came in the middle of the night.

“Just a minute!” she yelled, sloshing her precious hot water as she rushed to dress herself in a loose gown. She was still squeezing water out of her hair when she answered the door.

Tommy Shelby looked terrible even by his own greatly diminished standards. 

He was drowning in a coat that was meant to make him look impressive. A thin layer of what must have been sweat shimmered on his gaunt face. But it was his eyes, as usual, that were the worst. Surrounded by dark, sleepless rings, they were no longer inscrutably blank. They were raw, and Lizzie found herself regretting all those times she had wished to better read his emotions. Not like this. It was too much.

“Lizzie.” Even his voice sounded rough.

She opened her mouth, not knowing what she could possibly say, but he didn’t give her the chance. Without warning, he crossed the threshold, his lips finding hers with painful desperation. She gasped, back-pedalling through the kitchen. 

He was not gentle. Every movement had an intensity to it, a barely held back frenzy. Lizzie’s lip bled where he accidentally bit down without noticing. His hands, skittering across her back, were trembling.

She shouldn’t be doing this. She could taste whiskey and something sweeter than cigarettes on his tongue. He couldn’t seem to stop shaking. He was using her as a distraction from whatever else was going on. This wouldn’t help anything. 

She shouldn’t be doing this, but she didn’t want to stop. When he touched her, she could forget that none of it mattered to him. She could pretend that he came to her in the middle of the night because he wanted _her_ , not some sort of escape.

It was pathetic and awful. It didn’t stop her unbuttoning his pants when his hands were shaking badly enough to fumble it. She gave in to his desperation and didn’t question it, kneeled on all fours on the bed, dress only half off, and she didn’t hate it as much as she should have.

He collapsed onto her back as soon as he came, the weight forcing her to lay all the way down. They were a mess of limbs and sweat and clothing. But Lizzie knew that in a few minutes, it would be like this never happened.

She waited for him to get up. 

And waited.

He didn’t move.

The fear rose gradually up Lizzie’s throat until it threatened to choke her. Carefully, gently, she pulled herself out from under him. He flopped onto the bed like a dead weight.

Dead. Weight.

“Tommy?” He was slumped on the bed, half-dressed, pale. His eyes were closed. Lizzie felt his pulse, her own throbbing all the way up to her tongue. She breathed a sigh of immeasurable relief when she found it, a little fast, but definitely there. He was asleep, then, or passed out. 

Resting, either way. It was clear that he desperately needed it.

Lizzie got up to make a cup of tea to help calm herself down. As she did so, she felt her hair. It was still soaking wet. Of course. She had been in the bath no more than ten minutes ago. Curious, she checked the water. It was still warm. 

For some reason, this made her want to cry.

She didn’t. Instead, she went back into the bedroom, setting up a chair by the side of the bed. It was laughable that she felt uncomfortable getting into bed with Tommy while he slept, but it was true.

He looked decades younger like this, sprawled on the bed. Hardly more than a child. His delicate eyelashes fluttered softly over the dark circles. Lizzie wondered how exhausted a person had to be to just fall asleep like that.

Soon, she felt her own eyelids begin to droop, her tea sitting forgotten. It was very late. Every muscle in her body ached. She just wanted to rest. Just a moment of rest. She was drifting, eyes still half open when Tommy started to twitch. It took her a few seconds to register it. She was tired, almost starting to dream.

It was only when the twitching began to turn into thrashing that Lizzie woke up fully. She stumbled to her feet, hurrying to get to Tommy even though she had no idea what she could do.

It was too late, anyway.

She had just climbed onto the bed when he jerked awake, sitting straight up in bed. The raw wildness was back in his eyes. Clearly, he had no idea where he was.

“Tommy, Tommy. It’s okay. It’s Lizzie. You’re at my place. You were asleep.” She tried to talk slowly, tried to keep the tremor out of her voice.

He was staring, eyes glassy, panting, gulping air like he was drowning. “Lizzie,” he said at last, the word forming oddly on his tongue. 

“You’re in my bed. You fell asleep. It’s alright.” It wasn’t alright. It was terrifying. But at least Tommy seemed to be coming back to himself. He shook his head to clear it. He was still breathing heavily.

“Damn shovels,” he said, and Lizzie wasn’t sure she’d heard him right.

“What?”

“I’m sorry, Lizzie. I didn’t mean to…fall asleep.” He started to fix his clothes, not looking at her.

Lizzie had never felt more powerless, and considering her life thus far, that was saying something. He was standing up now, looking just as bad as when he had come in, the short rest not nearly enough.

“Tommy. Stay.” He looked at her so sharply that she nearly took it back right there. But the tiredness that he couldn’t hide strengthened her resolve. “Please. You need to rest.”

He kept looking at her with ice in his eyes, and Lizzie suddenly thought of the gun in the pocket of the coat he was holding.

He turned away.

“I’ve got to get back to my family. There’s work to be done.”

Lizzie didn’t think it was courage, but it must have been something because she reached out for his arm. He flinched. “It’s three o’clock in the morning. Everyone’s asleep. Stay.”

Now that he had looked away, he couldn’t seem to look back. “I won’t be able to sleep.”

“Have some tea, then.” She picked up her own forgotten tea from the table and thrust it into his hand. She watched him mask the way his hands were still trembling and hated how good he was at it. It made her wonder how often he was like this, and no one knew.

His family knew. Lizzie told herself that. They had to know how bad it was. But, a traitorous little voice inside her said, _if they know, then why is he here?_ Even worse, the little voice sounded more satisfied than upset by the realisation.

Refusing to follow that train of thought, she strode into the kitchen to make herself a new cup of tea. Tommy followed her, padding silently across the floor.

“You were falling asleep. I woke you up, didn’t I?” he said as she stared at the kettle, trying to look busy.

“No,” she said too quickly.

“Sorry. Shit. It’s late. I didn’t realise…” Never mind not knowing the time, Lizzie was fairly sure he didn’t know what day it was. But then again, maybe he did. He was so good with that sort of thing. It was the other stuff, the stuff she didn’t know how to talk about.

The kettle boiled. She poured her own cup, then motioned him over so she could top his up.

“Is there anything I can do to help?” It was such a stupid thing to say. She regretted it immediately. They were both standing next to the stove. Close enough to touch. Not touching.

“You help.” She looked up at him. He looked like he maybe believed it, or at least tried to. She thought of their bodies, of sweat and desperation and her own selfishness.

“I don’t think so.” His mouth quirked ever so slightly.

“Yeah.”

She didn’t know what made her do it. It was not the moment for it. Not even close. But she set down her tea anyway and wrapped her arms around him. She realised, as she did it, that she’d never hugged him before.

For a moment, he stiffened. Then, ever so slowly, he melted until the top of his head was bowed, resting on her shoulder. He wasn’t very much taller than she was.

Part of her wished that he would cry. That he would hug her back. That he would do anything at all. But he just stood there, head buried in her somehow still wet hair. She could feel the bones in both their bodies, digging into each other. It all felt so breakable. She held on a little harder.

Lizzie thought about how this would look, if anyone were watching them, looking in from the outside. It was just the two of them, standing there in her tiny kitchen in the middle of the night. Just the two of them, with the whole world somewhere else. What a picture of intimacy they were. 

What a terrible picture.


	9. If This Were the Best She Could Hope For...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lizzie, John, a chance wasted.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah I'm out of excuses at this point. I've written two drafts of a novel since I last posted? Oops. Give me a comment anyway? Also, hyped for season four. Will try to finish this damn thing before then but don't trust me.

It was not a good routine. It was not healthy. Lizzie wasn’t even certain that it made her happy. But those next few months, when Tommy would call for her, or show up at her door when there was nowhere else in the world he could go, they were some of the best nights Lizzie had ever had. She thought she knew why Tommy had been overpaying her all this time. He had suspected that a day would come when she would be more than a place to put his cock. When she would hear things, see things, that no one else did. And to ensure that she did not share, he had added a little insurance to buy her silence. It hurt, of course, that even late night cups of tea and cigarettes were accounted for, that she could give nothing without Tommy adding it to his own mental tab. But at the same time, she thought she understood. Everyone sold parts of themselves. 

Lizzie grew accustomed to their relationship, strange as it was. Tommy still looked exhausted every time she saw him, but he was determined. Sometimes it worried her, the risks she knew he would take, but there was nothing she could do. And it was, after all, far preferable to the other sorts of risks he could be taking. It felt like every other week, there was news of another veteran soldier, dead or missing. The papers always sounded surprised. No one else did.

When Tommy stopped coming, at first Lizzie panicked.

A week without hearing and she started to wander around Small Heath, hovering outside The Garrison, looking for him. She knew that she would have heard if something had happened. She wasn’t an idiot, and Tommy Shelby was practically a king. If something horrible had happened, she would know. She heard nothing.

Except, of course, something had happened. Grace.

Lizzie heard about her before she saw her. She heard that a beautiful Irish barmaid had come into town, gotten herself hired at The Garrison. She heard that she sang like an angel, but wouldn’t let any of the men touch her. She heard that she talked to Tommy in the street. 

Lizzie wanted to feel relieved that Tommy was likely just infatuated. She wanted to tell herself that that was a good thing. She tried to remember Tommy before the war, when he had been fiercely loyal to his girlfriends and laughed at the idea of paying for sex. This was a good thing. 

But she couldn’t remember that Tommy. All she could remember was the feel of his too sharp bones digging into her and the trembling fragility of the world. It scared her.

***

The mob of children outside was distracting enough before one of them threw something that bounced off of Lizzie’s window while she was trying to sweep the floor. Thankfully, her window didn’t break, but Lizzie was just about at her wit’s end. She stomped down the stairs with unusual anger. Just the thought of how much repairing a window would cost had sent her into an anxious rage.

“Who the fuck threw that?” She demanded as she banged open the door. Four children stood before her, the oldest around seven, the youngest barely walking. It was the second biggest, a girl, who spoke.

“We didn’t mean it. Sorry, marm.”

“It was just a fucking ball. What else are we supposed to do? It’s ages until supper and we didn’t get any fucking dinner.” That was the oldest, a boy, swearing in front of Lizzie without an ounce of shame.

It was then that Lizzie made the connection.

“Are you John Shelby’s young ones, then?”

There was a chorus of sullen yesses. Lizzie felt a headache coming on as her anger faded.

“And why hasn’t your bastard of a father given you dinner?” 

The oldest girl answered as the boy was busy kicking up clouds of dirt. “He has business in Man-Manchessir. Mrs. Turner was supposed to, but Da paid her before he left, so she went to the pub and now we can’t find her, and we’re very hungry. Who are you?”

The headache was now full force.

“You can call me Lizzie. Alright, then. I don’t have any food, but let’s say we go to town and get you all something. Does that sound good?”

The four children, who Lizzie soon learned were named Johnny, Lela, Charlie, and Miriam, were eager to go along. Lizzie found it vaguely worrying how easy it had been to earn their affections. There were many people in Birmingham who might not be so innocent in there desire to help them. Lizzie cursed John for his thoughtlessness in leaving them to fend for themselves. Within only a few blocks, Lizzie was carrying Miriam, the smallest, after Johnny had unsuccessfully tried to pick her up and nearly hurt both of them. The whole situation was a disaster waiting to happen.

Lizzie really had no idea what to do with the children. It wasn’t like she could just pop into a shop and expect someone to feed them, and she really didn’t have very much money. She was tempted just to bring them to their home again, but figured that there would be no one there who could help. She doubted either Tommy or Polly would have left it this long if they were aware of the situation.

Eventually, she settled on The Garrison in the hopes that Tom might be able to dig up some food from somewhere. It was too early in the day for the place to be getting any business. Still, it felt odd to usher a crowd of small children into a pub. Johnny especially seemed delighted with the scandal of going to the pub at his age.

The door had been left unbarred, but the bar was not being manned.

“Tom?” Lizzie asked, although surely he would have heard the children.

“Tom’s away. What’s the matter?” It was Grace who appeared from around the corner. Even with a dishtowel in hand and a less than clean dress, Lizzie had to admit that she was truly beautiful. She also seemed friendly and willing to help. Lizzie felt another pain spike through her head.

“I was looking for Tom. The children haven’t eaten, and no one’s about to mind them. I thought he might be able to find a bowl of soup or something.”

“They’re not yours, then?”

“God, no. John Shelby’s.” Lizzie saw the way Grace perked up at the mention of the Shelby name.

“He’s off on business with Tommy. They were going to Manchester.”

Lizzie didn’t like that Grace knew this, but she didn’t want to press. “That’s what the children said. You wouldn’t happen to have food lying around, would you?”

“I say we might be able to rustle something up. I can take you into the back and we can see.” The children followed eagerly behind as they went into the back room. Lizzie set Miriam down at last, her arms aching. 

“I don’t actually believe we’ve met,” Grace said as she dug out a tin of crackers, and Lizzie rooted around for some vegetables.

“Oh. Right. Lizzie Stark.” She blushed a little at her rudeness. Of course Grace would never have heard of her. She would have no idea how much time Lizzie had spent thinking about _her_.

“Grace Burgess.” They shook hands. Grace’s were soft and smooth.

“So you’re a barmaid here?” Lizzie asked.

Grace smiled. She had a very nice smile. “I’ve been a barmaid everywhere.”

Liar. Her hands weren’t yet roughened by dishwater. “But you’re not a whore.” It was Grace’s turn to blush. _How quaint_ , Lizzie thought, surprisingly viciously. 

“No. Everyone asks, though.”

“Well, most of us are. Here, Lela, would you give this tin to your siblings? There’s a good girl.”

“I haven’t seen you around.” Grace said, and Lizzie wondered what a girl like that would have been doing around the whorehouse. Whether it had anything to do with lying about her work as a barmaid. Whether Tommy knew that she was lying. Surely he did.

“I keep to myself. Private appointments.”

“As do I, mostly.”

“Mostly. So if you’re not a whore, who do you spend time with when you’re not keeping to yourself?” Grace didn’t stiffen or react in any obvious way, but Lizzie was sure she was making her uncomfortable. She was also pretty sure who it was she spent her time with.

“I’m going to Cheltenham Races next week, actually.” There was just the slightest hint of pride in her voice. 

“With Tommy Shelby?”

“Yes.” So she had already managed to make it to the level where Tommy thought he could use her for business. Obviously, she worked quickly. Equally obviously, she had no idea what she was getting into. 

“As his date?” Lizzie kept her voice carefully neutral. 

“What makes you say that?” Grace was being equally non-comital. That was fine.

“Well, you wouldn’t be in the stables.”

“I suppose not.”

Lizzie almost let the conversation drop right there. What Grace did with Tommy at the Cheltenham races was really none of her business. It was not a side of Tommy’s life she had any influence over, and she didn’t know Grace at all. More worryingly, Grace was lying about her past and might have very good reasons for choosing to go to the racetrack, reasons that could hurt Tommy. It wasn’t her business. But she didn’t let it drop.

“Be careful. You’re in Billy Kimber’s territory.” Grace raised her delicate eyebrows, clearly not sensing the trouble.

“I’d heard. Tommy has it under control.”

Lizzie remembered Tommy’s eyes, wild and raw, his trembling, knife-edged body. Grace had no idea. “Maybe. That doesn’t mean you won’t get hurt.”

Grace narrowed her eyes, considering, perhaps deciding how far to play her hand, or working out Lizzie’s motives for the warning. Frankly, Lizzie wouldn’t have minded being told her own motives. At last, she said: 

“Tommy’s a hard man, Lizzie, but I don’t believe he intends to see me hurt.” The words were measured and calculating. Whatever Grace had done while not being a barmaid had clearly prepared her to speak carefully. But it had not prepared her for Tommy Shelby. Lizzie could have laughed at Grace’s naiveté if it wasn’t making her feel a little sick.

“Grace,” she said, and she still didn’t know why she cared. “Tommy won’t notice that you’re being hurt until it’s far too late. Watch yourself.” 

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Grace said slowly, trying to figure Lizzie out. Lizzie could practically hear the gears turning in her mind. Well, if Grace could get her measure it would be more than Lizzie had ever been able to do with herself. She turned away from the counter and headed into the main room to round up the children, who had finished eating and were now in much better spirits. 

“Alright, it’s time I take you home. Miriam, over here with me. Up. There you go. Everyone else hold hands. I don’t want any of you getting trampled by a horse. And thank Miss Grace for the food before you go.”

Lizzie followed up the chorus of thank you’s by saying, “It was a pleasure to meet you, Grace. Good luck at Cheltenham.”

It was not altogether unpleasant to walk down the road with a small mob of children, as inconvenient as it was. Lizzie spent so much time on her own that the constant tugging of little hands was a nice change. It was stressful, though. Lizzie was just in the process of pulling Charlie out of the way of a pile of horse shit when Johnny and Lela went running.

“Da! Da!” 

And sure enough, John Shelby was walking down the lane, cigarette dangling from his mouth. He never seemed to be able to pull it off with the ease that Tommy did. He jumped in surprise at the onslaught of small children, but soon broke into a wide grin. Lizzie stood back awkwardly, and it was several minutes before he had enough space to even notice she was there. He may also have been looking for Miriam, who had fallen asleep on Lizzie’s shoulder and was totally unaware of her siblings’ excitement. 

“Lizzie,” he said awkwardly. “What are you doing here?”

“Apparently, Mrs. Turner can’t be relied upon because I found your children outside my room, hungry and getting into trouble. They’ve been fed now. I was on my way to take them to your place.” Lizzie thought she should have sounded angrier. God knew that someone needed to tell John to be more responsible, but she just couldn’t find the heart. It hadn’t been bad, really, taking care of them.

Anyway, the implication was still there because John blushed. “Fuck, Lizzie, I’m sorry.” He looked around for a moment as if for inspiration. “Hey, would you mind bringing them home with me. I’ll get you some supper for your trouble. That alright?” It was painfully awkward, but Lizzie couldn’t really remember the last time she’d been asked anywhere. 

“Yeah. Thanks, John. Do you mind?” Carefully, she passed him the sleeping Miriam. She felt a strange little thrill as their bodies touched in the transfer. It was gone a moment later. 

Supper with John’s brood turned out to be a chaotic affair. It was typical of John, to offer her food and then turn out to be utterly incapable of preparing anything. Eventually, Lizzie dug up some leftover meats and managed to make everyone sandwiches. She wondered how John could possibly be feeding all the children on a daily basis. Lizzie also discovered that there was a fifth child, another boy, who stayed with a wet nurse. The whole situation was making her anxious. The only good thing was that in the flurry of wiping chins, plopping bums back on chairs and generally running defence on the area surrounding the table, there was little chance for awkwardness. It was only after, when sleepy children had been led upstairs to the bed, that Lizzie registered the strangeness of the situation.

“Do you, uh, want a whiskey?” John asked as they returned to the kitchen. Lizzie had already noted that it had been a bit rude of him not to offer any when he drank at dinner.

“Thank you.”

They stood by the table, drinking, not sitting down. Some of the dishes still needed to be cleared.

“How do you know what to do?” The question came out of nowhere, and Lizzie had no idea what John meant. There weren’t many moments she could think of where she had the slightest idea of what she was doing.

“What?”

“With the kids. You’re so good with them, and you don’t even know them. I mean, fuck, they’re my own kids, I’ve had them for years, and I can barely keep up. How do you do it?” Lizzie wanted to laugh, but she looked at John face, and he seemed so pained.

She shrugged and took another sip. “It’s not about knowing. I don’t know. I just watch them, see what they might need. But I wouldn’t say I know.”

John didn’t respond for a long time. He seemed to be thinking it over. “Did I ever tell you that you’re beautiful, Lizzie?”

She froze. John was being ridiculous. He was drunk and tired and she was the woman who happened to be in his kitchen. This was not a first for Lizzie. She knew he didn’t mean anything by it. But still. He had said it. 

“No,” but she said it very quietly.

“Well, you are.” He was smiling now, and he had just a trace of Tommy’s charm when he smiled. It wasn’t dazzling like his brother, not nearly so sharp. But it had been so long since Lizzie had seen Tommy smile, and John had called her beautiful.

“Thank you.” His smile widened. He still looked so young, even after the War. Lizzie was reminded of when they were in school, when he would share a treat that Arthur had gotten for him.

“Do you—?” But he couldn’t quite get the words out before Lizzie was kissing him. It was different, different from anyone she’d kissed in a long time. It reminded her bizarrely of Joe, and she chased the thought away by pressing her hips more firmly into John’s, slotting herself into place. It was strange, not having a time limit. She liked the way his tongue explored the inside of her mouth, the way his teeth nipped without urgency. She took the time to trail kisses up his jaw, and tried not to think about how relatively undefined it was. Relative to whom. 

He moaned when she nipped at his ear, and she found herself giggling as she told him not to wake the children. It was a giddy feeling, to walk slowly towards the bed, to remove every article of clothing one by one. There were moments when he wanted to speed up, but Lizzie could slow him down with just a few motions. He was so easy to lead, so willing to wait for her.

When both of them were as bare as the day they were born, he pushed her back onto the bed. Lizzie let him, watched him climb somewhat awkwardly over her, painfully hard, but still unsure. Lizzie had a moment of exasperation as he fumbled around, wondering how he possibly have five children at this rate. Sure, she wanted leisurely, but not this.

Making a quick decision, she sat up, ignoring John’s muted protests which stopped as soon as he realised what she was doing. She flipped them around carefully, enjoying the little thrill of power as she pushed him back against the pillows and climbed on top, settling onto his hard cock with a swallowed moan. She took a moment to enjoy the way John’s eyes blew wide at the sensation before she began to move. She had to admit that she too enjoyed the novelty. She had been on top before, of course, but only at the specific instructions of her client, never because she wanted to, never because the power was hers.

That knowledge alone was enough to make her wet, and after the long period of anticipation, now that the moment had arrived, John’s hips bucked quickly, the rhythm irregular and speeding up. She had to put her hand over his mouth to quiet him as he moaned, and then she had to stifle a noise of her own as he bit down. 

She rode him faster and faster, loving the power, loving that their eyes were closed and it was nighttime and someone else’s bed. Loving how the thoughts were slipping away, dragged under by the sensations of her body. Loving how she came first and didn’t manage to completely stifle her cry. Loving how he joined her, moments later, screaming into her hand, bucking frantically. 

Mostly, though, she loved laying in his bed after, nowhere for him to be, no money for her to count. 

She loved all those things, and if, as she listened to John’s deep breathing, it was the hooded look in Tommy’s pale eyes that she thought of, well, she couldn’t love everything.

***

The next morning, Lizzie got up to help the children get their breakfast. It was like the night before, except everyone had even more energy after a good night’s sleep. After the eating process was complete, though, and the children had run out the door to play with friends, John pulled her back upstairs.

They lay in bed together, and Lizzie secretly gloried in the sensation of laying naked next to another human, warm and spent. John’s arm rested heavily over her chest. The morning sunlight warmed her face. It was blissful.

“Lizzie.”

She looked down at his face. His drooping eyes were fastened on her, brows furrowed. He looked so young. 

“Will you marry me?”

It was like having a bucket of ice water dumped on her. She thought she may actually have shivered. “John.” She sounded a little pleading.

John pushed himself up on his elbows to look her more fully in the face. He looked completely, heartbreakingly serious. “I know it sounds ridiculous, but listen, Lizzie. I can’t do it alone with all the kids. It’s killing me, and you saw what happened yesterday. Someone could have gotten hurt.”

“But—“

“Listen. I have to say this. I can’t do it alone. But the business is doing well right now. If you marry me, you’ll be well provided for. You won’t need to keep seeing any other men, staying up all night, anything like that. Just look after the kids. You’re so good with them, Lizzie. You’re like nothing I’ve ever seen before. And, well, I think I love you.”

“Oh, John.” It was not the first time she’d slept with a man, and then he’d offered her marriage, but it had never hurt quite like this. She had liked John for as long as she could remember, but she had never considered this. He looked so hopeful. “It’s a little soon, don’t you think?”

“I was thinking it was a little late, actually. I’ve loved you for a long time, Lizzie. What more is there to think about?”

The worst part was that he had a point. John was not calculating and controlled like Tommy, but this plan actually made sense. At the very least, Lizzie couldn’t see herself doing any better. And John was sweet, hesitant. He listened to her. She thought about how willing he had been for her to push him down onto the bed, lead him. And she liked the children, as difficult as they were. She liked how they had already begun to call her name when they needed something. She liked feeling wanted.

“I don’t know about stopping my work. I don’t have any skills and—“

“You’ve got plenty of skills, and like I said, I can provide for you. You won’t have to go to any other men ever again.” Any men like your brother. John didn’t know about her and Tommy. She had never been certain before what Tommy told his brothers, but now she knew. If she said it now, if she told John about Tommy, that would be her argument made. John would never infringe on Tommy’s territory. Arthur was one thing. He had fucked every whore in the greater Birmingham area, but Tommy was different. Lizzie opened her mouth.

“You’re right.”

John’s face broke into radiant relief. He kissed her on the mouth, hard, and she swallowed down what she should have said.

It was easier than it should have been, not to say it. Weeks went by, and Lizzie spent nearly all of her time at John’s lodgings. He was absentminded and often absent, but he was sweet, and he looked at her like she was beautiful.

Still, she couldn’t say that she was particularly surprised when Tommy’s car drove up beside her one day when she was bringing the shopping home. She knew he wouldn’t approve, and even if she allowed herself the occasional fantasy that it was because he was jealous, she knew that wasn’t true either. He didn’t approve because he saw her as an ordinary whore who was only marrying John in order to move up a little in the world. 

And just as she knew he wouldn’t approve, she also knew that he was setting her a trap by coming to talk to her. It was a trap, but a fair one. If she avoided its snares, she knew he would allow the marriage. Tommy was as fair as he was cold. 

“One last time. You and me.” She would like to have said that she had been led into the trap unawares, that she had no idea what Tommy was playing at. She would liked to have cited naiveté as the reason that she took him at his word and entertained the fantasy that he would miss her if she married John, that he needed her for more than just her body. She would have liked to have said that she didn’t know that everything with John, everything fresh and new and beautiful, would fall apart if she said yes.

But she realised the truth, right then, sitting in Tommy Shelby’s car.

It was not a nice truth. It was ugly, and selfish, and more than a little pathetic. 

The truth was that she would trade it all. She would give up the potential for a lifetime of domestic tranquility with John for one more desperate fuck with his brother. She would throw everything away for Tommy Shelby, no matter how many times John said he loved her.

“I love him, Tommy, really. Really,” she pleaded once the trap had been sprung. Tommy raised his hand to touch her face, and they looked into each other’s eyes. He knew that she was lying, and she knew that she was lying, but he didn’t know how that light touch on her cheek sent shivers up her spine. He didn’t know that.

When she stumbled back down the street, feeling her chance at some semblance of a happy home flitting away, she pulled out the eight pounds Tommy had given her. At least she had some money, and she hated herself for being glad. She hated herself for the spark of relief mixing with the tears that reminded her that she no longer had to try to be a new person for John. She hated herself for ruining things that could have been good and failing to regret them as much as she should.

 

She had told Tommy that John was ten times the man he was. It was probably true. But she had said it like it mattered, and that was not true at all. She knew now that she could never have been with John, or Joe, or anyone else she had pushed away over the years.

Walking down that street, crying, with a basket of vegetables and eight pounds in her hand, she finally admitted it to herself.

She was in love with Tommy Shelby. 

The admission did not change her world. It did not make her turn around and run after the car to confess her devotion. It changed nothing because there was another truth, one that hurt just as much.

It didn’t matter.


	10. If This Were Loyalty...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lizzie makes a guess, get a job, and loses something else.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heeyyyyyy I didn't go literal months between updates. The bar is so low right now, guys, so low. Anyway, I'm also 2.6K into the next chapter at this point. I have four more planned before I'm all caught up with the show so far. Hopefully I'll get them all up before season 4. I'm so pumped.
> 
> Anyway, hope you like it. Comments and kudos are always appreciated. I crave validation and this fandom is small :)

Grace betrayed Tommy.

Lizzie had seen it coming. So, she suspected, had Polly. And Tommy, well, she thought he might have known too. He had just chosen to ignore the fact that his beautiful barmaid was a known liar and too smart by half. It was enormously stupid. But Lizzie knew that blaming Tommy for his blindness would be a massive act of hypocrisy. No one could choose who they loved. 

The betrayal must have had a great effect on the Shelby family. The news of Inspector Campbell’s humiliating injury and Grace’s departure for America caused a hushed scandal among the residents of Small Heath. None dared talk about it when a Shelby might be near, but the whispers still circulated.

Strangely, for Lizzie, it made very little difference at all. The change had been when Grace had arrived, not when she left. Lizzie continued with business as usual. That is to say, she fucked men and got paid for it. During the war, she had learned to survive on very little and she found that she had plenty of work, even more now that Tommy no longer visited and messed with her schedule. So, she began to save. Not very much. Nothing that she would ever be able to live on. Not even enough for her to dream about quitting and moving into a bigger apartment. Nothing like that.

But it was enough money that when one day she passed an advertisement for typing lessons on the gate of her old primary school, she decided to sign up.

Lizzie had never so much as touched a typewriter before the first lesson. As she sat there in a row with a dozen other young women, thankfully none of whom she recognised, she put her hands on one for the first time. It was an oddly erotic experience, she thought, as she practised positioning her hands just right, her fingers finding increasingly quick and precise rhythms. The machine responded to her, slowly, at first, but Lizzie adjusted well. When the instructor came around to her and told her that she was a natural and asked whether she had any background in the area, Lizzie had to work very hard not to burst out laughing. 

It was one of the most productive hours of Lizzie’s life, and she began the walk home with a spring in her step, her hands twitching against her sides in imitation of what she’d been learning. 

As soon as she noticed that the car driving alongside her was slowing to a stop, she knew, with a lurching feeling in the pit of her stomach, who it would be. 

“Get in, Lizzie,” he said, as if he had any right to expect that of her.

“After what you did to me the last time, Tommy? Are you serious?” It had been nearly a year since Tommy had intervened with her engagement to John. She still lay awake at night sometimes, replaying the scene in her head, imagining everything turning out differently. It was not a fruitful habit, especially considering how even now, she didn’t just keep walking.

She stopped in front of the open car door. It was the first time she’d properly looked at Tommy since, well, the last time.

Surprisingly, he looked all right. By his standards since the war, at least. There had been a time when hard and cold wouldn’t have been the first words to come to mind, but she hardly remembered those days. He seemed determined though, as evidenced by the way he stared at her. He didn’t rise to her anger. He didn’t try to defend himself either. He just sat there, waiting for her to make the choice.

She always made the same choice.

She got in the car. 

“I know it’s been a few months, but I thought it might be time to renew our arrangement.” Tommy said without preamble, in the voice of firm professionalism that Lizzie knew he used to orchestrate far worse things than appointments with whores.

Despite the choices for which she could blame no one else, Lizzie still wasn’t quite through with her anger. “I thought the past was supposed to be the past,” she said bitterly.

The car was moving again. Lizzie realised he was driving her home. “Oh. It is.” Even Tommy’s bitterness was more biting than Lizzie’s. 

If they were at Lizzie’s lodgings, in the dark, maybe she would have challenged him on it. But in his car, in broad daylight, she didn’t dare.

Neither of them spoke until they were nearly outside her door. Then Tommy said: “Someone will be in touch with you about future appointments. Here.” He pulled out a wad of cash and handed it to her as he pulled up in front of her door.

Lizzie stared at it.

“Now?” She asked hesitantly.

“No,” Tommy said, almost impatiently. “That’s back pay. Now, get out.” Lizzie got out, not even registering the rudeness, still staring at the bills.

Back pay? For what? For months of not having sex with him? It made absolutely no sense, but the crawling dread over not even knowing what she was being paid for remained with her long after she had stored the extra bills along with her savings.

***

“Hello, Lizzie,” Tommy said as he entered her lodgings a few nights later. He was dressed smartly, and Lizzie got the sense that he could finally genuinely afford what he was wearing. Still, the razors in his cap caught the dying light when he set the hat down.

“Tommy.” The lingering coldness in her voice sounded childish even to her own ears. What point did she think she was making? If she was truly as angry as she had a right to be, she would not have agreed to this. It was that simple.

“Take off your clothes.” He didn’t say it in a way that was intended to be erotic. It was a business operation. It still sent a thrill up Lizzie’s spine, and she cursed her pathetic weakness.

The desperation was less acute than before Grace. As she dug her fingernails into his bony back, skating over the healed bullet wound, he didn’t seem quite so likely to fly apart at the seams. Of course, that didn’t mean that he paid her any more attention. When Lizzie risked a look at his face, she saw that his eyes were shut firmly. Imagining Grace, no doubt. Lizzie’s nails dug in a little deeper. Grace was gone. 

Her bitterness didn’t last though. It faded as she watched him put himself back together afterwards with such automated precision that he looked about to snap. She saw the look in his eyes when he paid her, something guilty, something empty. Lizzie should have hated Grace for taking Tommy from her. Not that Tommy had ever been hers to give away, but still. That wasn’t the issue. Grace had taken Tommy, and she had hurt him, and then she had left. And Lizzie was still here, picking up the pieces until the end of time.

But of course, because she was weak, she took it. She took the money and the sex and the eyes that wished they couldn’t see her. She took it all gladly.

Tommy started making regular appointments with her, every Monday. He had always treated their meetings more like business transactions than sex, but it was beginning to border on the clinical. Clearly, Tommy had thrown himself into whatever his new business ventures were whole-heartedly.

Lizzie heard about the Peaky Blinders every time she went into town. Grumbles, whispers, occasional praise. It no longer seemed remotely accurate to call them bookies. They ran this place. Even the people who still called them Gypsy scum did so with a tone of grudging respect. They were envious of the power that the Shelbys had managed to gather, and the money that contributed to their utter control over Birmingham.

Occasionally, this made Lizzie think about John, and how different her life might have been if it hadn’t been for Tommy. Mostly, it just made her think about Tommy. He didn’t act like a man who was riding a wave of success that surpassed anything that anyone in Small Heath had ever even dreamt of.

“It’s not a betrayal, you know.” Lizzie said one day after he had fucked her. He was nearly dressed. She was sitting on her bed in a nightgown. Tommy froze, his eyes like cut glass.

“I don’t pay you for your judgment,” he said sharply. 

Then what did he overpay her for?

“Sorry. I just—I think she would understand.”

He didn’t want to talk about it, but he didn’t seem to be able to help himself. Lizzie wondered if anyone in his family ever dared to mention Grace. She doubted it. Sometimes there were benefits to not having a real relationship. “You didn’t know her.” His voice was a little rough, as if he was rusty talking about it.

“Not well, I know. We talked once. I just think she would. She’s not naive.”

“No. She’s not naive.” Lizzie recognised the sound of someone trying to muster up justified anger and failing. She had heard it in her own voice many times. It made her heart ache in a way that was too complicated to dwell on. 

Neither of them said anything else. Tommy paid her and left. Just another silence.

***

That short, half-conversation changed their dynamic again. Tommy was a little less stiff with her, a little less mechanical. Lizzie gained confidence from the fact that she had touched on the most taboo of subjects and had not been immediately blinded for it. 

In addition, the slightly eased tension allowed Lizzie to get on with her own life in a way that she really hadn’t since before the war. She continued taking the typing classes, and she continued to learn more quickly than the other women there. Handing in her perfectly typed exercises at the end of the hour gave her a thrill unlike anything she’d ever experienced. She even, very occasionally, indulged in fantasies of getting a job as a secretary somewhere, typing up important letters, sitting at her very own desk with a typewriter all her own to dance beneath her fingers. It was an idle fancy. No business wanted to hire a whore as typist. It looked bad, no matter that the two jobs had absolutely nothing to do with one another.

Still, perhaps Tommy’s ambition was infectious. That was all right. She decided that she liked ambition, even though hers was infinitely smaller than Tommy’s.

Tommy’s ambition was huge, and it sat heavily on his shoulders. 

Lizzie didn’t notice at first. He was so much better than he’d been right after the war, but gradually, the shadows under his eyes began to deepen again, and his cheekbones made the familiar journey from defined to skeletal. When she finally began to notice, part of her was surprised that it hadn’t happened sooner, right after Grace. But in a way, this made more sense. It was all connected anyway.

Unlike the first time, Lizzie was no longer terrified when one day, more than a year after Grace had left, Tommy fell abruptly and deeply asleep on her bed. Carefully, Lizzie rolled out from under him, and went to go find a blanket to pull over him. She still couldn’t make herself stay in the bed with him sleeping. It felt like an invasion of privacy.

Not being in the bed, though, didn’t stop her from hearing the words that Tommy muttered in his sleep. “Grace,” predictably featured. But there were other words too, words to which Lizzie had no context but nonetheless filled her with a strange sense of foreboding. “London” she recognised, but there were names too, names that sounded Italian, but she didn’t quite catch them. Whoever they were, they were clearly making Tommy uneasy. He tossed and turned in her bed, but this time at least, the nightmares were not forceful enough to wake him.

Lizzie sat in the chair and closed her eyes, trying to block Tommy out from her consciousness. It was, of course, impossible. He featured far too prominently in her thoughts even when he wasn’t lying less than a metre away from her. 

It felt like a long time before she stopped hearing Tommy rustling the sheets, but it may have been just a few minutes. The silence was blessed, and Lizzie felt the bone-deep weariness that was always waiting just below the surface begin to take over, weighing her body down into the rickety chair.

The next thing that Lizzie was aware of was the familiar aroma of tea. She blinked her eyes open slowly to see the mug floating a few inches from her face. She took it automatically before looking up.

Tommy was fully dressed apart from his coat and hat. He looked better rested than he had when he’d arrived. Lizzie wondered what time it was. There was light peaking through her curtains. 

“Thank you.” She took a sip of the tea. It was life-giving. He’d even added milk. 

“You could have gotten in the bed,” he said. He was never one for small talk. Lizzie didn’t mind.

“I didn’t want to wake you up.” It wasn’t really a lie, but it came close. She didn’t know what made her push it further. Maybe it was how he’d brought tea, maybe she was just more reckless now. She hoped it wasn’t that she trusted him not to hurt her. She couldn’t afford to be that naive.

“So, you’re going to expand the business to London. Against the Italians.” It wasn’t even like she knew that for a fact. It was mostly guesswork and some reckless perception that she should have been suppressing.

Tommy’s eyes widened. For a brief moment, he was speechless. Lizzie had never seen him speechless before. “What do you know?” His voice was a little hoarse.

“Nothing,” she said truthfully. “You talk in your sleep though.” Tommy looked a little pale. What did he think she would do with the information she didn’t even understand?

“That information is confidential,” he said stiffly. It struck Lizzie as strangely funny. Confidence, intimacy, trust. None of these things were clear with Tommy Shelby. She decided to test her theory while he was off-balance.

“Of course it is. That’s what you’ve been paying me for, right? On top of the sex? You’ve been buying me off for years now. Not sure how that works for you, though. I already have the money you gave me. I could easily pass on the information to anyone asking for a little more.” Lizzie was working purely in the range of hypotheticals, still sitting in the position in which she’d been sleeping. Tommy, though, was tense. He didn’t like the vulnerability of having any element of his life he couldn’t control, even only in his sleep.

“The Peaky Blinders would find you,” he said, not quite as threateningly as Lizzie thought he meant to. That didn’t mean she doubted his sincerity.

“You didn’t need to bribe me, Tommy. You never needed to.”

“I thought you were smart enough to take advantage of anything you might find out. Go to the highest bidder.” That was a back-handed compliment if Lizzie had ever heard one.

“I guess I’m not.”

“No. Doesn’t seem like it.”

***

“I wish, just once, you wouldn’t pay me. As if we were ordinary people.” Lizzie was sitting behind the typewriter, and maybe it was its strangely seductive pull that made her say it. As soon as the words left her mouth, she wanted them back. Lizzie could rarely be accused of dreaming, but this was obviously one of those silly times that she let herself indulge in some fantasy. Ordinary people. For a long time, she had thought she was ordinary. Part of her still did. But she was sleeping with a gang boss now. It had happened almost without her noticing. And Tommy. He was so outside of the ordinary that he pulled other people with him. He pulled Lizzie with him.

Still. It was wrong to say it aloud. Wrong to admit to the desire that had informed Lizzie’s life longer than she was willing to contemplate.

Part of her was glad for Tommy’s reaction. “Yeah,” he said, with the casual dismissiveness that had sent knives into her before today. He acted as if her dream was not even worth the slightest bit of consideration, and he was right.

After he left, Lizzie found herself mouthing the word. “Yeah.” It felt like chewing on glass. It was the truth. Tommy would always pay and never be ordinary. There had been a time when that hadn’t been the case, but the endless gulf of the war stretched between Lizzie and those days and it wasn’t even worth the effort of remembering. 

Tommy was going to be back that night. There was no point in Lizzie going anywhere else for the time being. She set her hands on the typewriter keys.

**Dear Tommy,  
I’m sorry. I’m sorry that you lost Grace. I’m sorry that I can’t help you with it. I wish I could help you. I’d do anything to help you.**

Her hands paused on the keys, shaking a little but not hitting any false notes. Her eyes were still closed. She started again. ****

**I love you. Sometimes I think you know this, but other times I’m not sure. I don’t think I want you to know. If you knew, you might realise how much you’ve hurt me these last three years, and I don’t ever want you to know that. I know that you don’t love me and never will. That’s all right. You don’t have to. I still wish you wouldn’t pay me, though.**  
All my love,  
Lizzie Stark

She ripped the paper out of the typewriter, still with her eyes closed, and began to tear it into tiny pieces. She tore and tore until the paper was reduced to flakes, soft as snow, between her fingers. It occurred to her that she should be crying, but she wasn’t. 

Just ripping paper.

***

“No exceptions.” The thrill that Lizzie felt upon hearing that she would finally have a real job, something at which she was skilled and actually enjoyed, drained away as quickly as it had come. For a moment, she wondered if he had finally guessed the extent of her attraction to him and decided that was enough was enough. It was time to return to the whores who were in it just for the money.

She dismissed the idea as quickly as it had come. With this new situation, she would spend far more time with Tommy than she ever had when they were just fucking. If he wanted rid of her, this was not the way to do it. And the way he looked at her, the intensity of his gaze, meant more than filling an open position and moving on with his sex life.

It wasn’t until after he had left her alone again that it clicked.

He saw her as a crutch.

Of course. Tommy Shelby could rely on no one. The war and Grace had worked together to teach him that. And even if Lizzie was just a warm body to him, he had still slept in her bed, drunk her tea and whiskey, mumbled secret names to her in his sleep. She might now be dealing with the sensitive information of the business side of Shelby Brothers, Limited, but that other information had now been decided to be off limits. Tommy was giving her a job, and in doing so, he was shutting himself off completely. He would not even give in to the mechanical desires of his body. There would be no more lapses. 

Lizzie, without vanity, thought there was a very high likelihood that the choice would kill him.

She knew, equally grimly, that it would not kill her.

Lizzie surveyed the typewriter. It looked different, now that it was all hers. She opened all the drawers in the desk. They were empty. She thought about what she might fill them with, but soon her mind wandered. It wandered back, miraculously making the leap over the blackness of the war, back to a time when even the smog was a little bit lighter.

_“Mostly, I imagine having my own desk with a stack of papers on it and my own key for the little drawers,” Lizzie had said, sitting on the roof in that bright day in the hazy past. Joe, dreamy, sweet, dead, unloved Joe was sitting next to her. Fifteen and full of dreams just waiting to die._

_He hadn’t let her get away with just that statement. He was always pushing for more from her. “What do you want to do then, with your desk?” he had asked, teasing, as if it wasn’t an impossible question, like everything else about the future._

_Lizzie hadn’t wanted to give it any thought. Thought went with hope. “I dunno. I just like the idea of one.” Of course it hadn’t stopped him._

_“Dream a little.”_

And here she was, with the desk of her idle dreams. Joe was rotting in some field in France, and Lizzie had a desk all her own. A desk with empty drawers that she didn’t know what to do with. A desk for the price of the fantasy of Tommy’s love.

It was then, finally, that she laid her head down on the desk that was all her own, and cried.


	11. If This Were Getting Out...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's Darby day. Things couldn't be much worse.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Probably should have edited this more, but what can you do? Edit, but I didn't. Anyway, it's Darby Day, so TW: Rape and Rape Discussion. Sorry. I think there might be one sort of happy chapter coming. With all the ladies. Have another serving of angst in the meantime. Comments always appreciated :)

The moment that Inspector Campbell appeared in the waiting room, Lizzie knew that there would be trouble.

His cane, the cane that Grace had forced him to rely on, thudded on the freshly polished floors. Lizzie put on her most professional face, the one she used to use at the whorehouse when men asked for children. _We don’t provide for that, but I’d be happy to show you our other services._

“Mr. Shelby will be with you in a moment.” The mask was brittle, shattered easily by the man’s next words.

“And what exactly do you do for Mr. Shelby?” The insinuation was clear, and it wasn’t like he was wrong. No, he was. Now he was wrong. She didn’t do that anymore. She didn’t have to lie to him.

“I am exactly a secretary.” She was proud of the defiance in her voice, at least until he looked at her, blue eyes cold in a way that Tommy’s could never be. Lizzie had to suppress a shiver. She was a secretary with a desk and a salary and a typewriter. He couldn’t hurt her. He couldn’t do anything to her. Who else would he hurt instead? She had heard the stories. She blocked them out. They didn’t concern her. None of that concerned her anymore. She was a secretary.

She sat back at her desk and tried not to hear as Tommy and Campbell shouted at one another. She remembered hearing Campbell’s name the first time, muttered on Tommy’s sleeping lips. Tommy hated him, but he feared him too. Very few people could make Tommy afraid anymore. Lizzie shivered again.

They were in there a long time. When they finally emerged, Campbell strode off, his cane thudding so loudly that it sounded as if he was trying to break the wood. Clearly, Tommy had won, whatever their disagreement had been. Thankfully, Campbell was too angry to stop to speak with her.

Tommy, however, did.

He loitered in front of her desk for a few moments, like men often did in front of their secretaries. If the world were upside down, he might have been coming onto her.

“I need you to come to Epsom with me.”

For half a second, the irrepressible, naive girl curled up inside of Lizzie rejoiced. Epsom was all anyone had been talking about for weeks. It would be the most glamorous event of the year. Tommy Shelby was asking her to go with him.

“What do you need a secretary at Epsom for?”

“I don’t need a secretary,” Tommy said flatly.

Lizzie’s heart dropped so quickly that she felt dizzy.

***

Despite Tommy’s warning that she wouldn’t be needed for her usual duties, there was something about the giddy atmosphere at Epsom that made her optimistic. Being asked to be Tommy Shelby’s arm candy for the day was far from the worst job she’d done.

Everyone who passed by them was so finely dressed that they glittered like butterflies, wearing jewels on their hats that Lizzie would never have been able to take out of her sight long enough to put on her head. There were police there too, and that made Lizzie nervous, but she noticed the rich people float around them, completely unconcerned. Here, no one had anything to fear. 

The weight of Tommy’s arm locked with her own kept making her smile unexpectedly. Sure it was all pretend, but everywhere she looked she saw more and more people dressing up and pretending. They didn’t even stick out. It was glorious.

Until Tommy pulled her into the dining area and told her what she had to do.

It was already a bad sign when he gave her a drink. It was a worse sign when he sat her down and actually paid attention to her, looked her in the eyes like a human being. That meant he needed something. Needed something that only Lizzie could provide. Yeah. Right. 

“I’ll get to you before it can start,” he said to her, trying to be reassuring. It showed how little he understand about her job—the job she used to have. There was no way he could do that because, as every whore knew, it didn’t start with the sex. That was the end of it, the easy part. It started long before that, when that man, the Field Marshall or whoever it would be that day, raked his eyes down her. When she didn’t recoil like she wanted to. It started with the things he said, with the way he held her hand like every tiny bone in it belonged to him. 

Just thinking about it while Tommy spoke, she could feel the ghosts of their touches. 

She shivered, found herself staring at Tommy, oddly detached. She loved this man, with his hard eyes and sharp bones. She loved him and she hated herself for it, her greatest weakness. She hated him for it too sometimes, and she felt that familiar, impotent anger building up again as he tried to reassure her, tried to soften those eyes to be something other than what they were. 

He wouldn’t change. Lizzie knew that. But she also knew that he had never understood her, not like he thought he did. And now he was sending her out again, using her as bait. Surely if he knew…

She started stumblingly. “No exceptions was no hardship—“

She had to explain, make him understand, hear, at least, the dilemma she was in, the deep dark terrible reason that she would do this thing that he would ask of her, that she would hate him for asking, and hate herself for doing it and love him more than any of those things.

But the words were born dead, withering on her tongue.

She had never come so close.

For a moment, she thought she saw a flash of something in his eyes. Had he wanted her to continue? Did he want to know?

No, he was just glad that his grand plan was going to go off smoothly, whatever that was.

“You got a piece of chalk?” She asked in defeat, trying to sound brusque. That he was confused about the chalk was a mangled sort of joke. The details of her little tricks were a mystery to him. He had never needed to know. Tommy Shelby rose above. She stayed in the dirt.

The line of chalk on her shoe erased all the romance of the charade. It was just lying now. Cheap tricks and soiled finery. These men were no better than the men of Small Heath. Tommy was no better. A little chalk and the illusion was erased. Now Lizzie just wanted him gone. He didn’t belong here with her, like this. He never had.

But there was one more blow to impart before Tommy would leave her alone to her shame. 

“I’ll get to you before it can start. I promise.” He looked her in the eyes as he said and she could see his belief. His faith that he could fix things. It was the faith that allowed him to believe that he could drag his family through hell and come out untainted. As if all that was going on with Arthur, with Micheal and Polly wan’t enough to prove that his promises held no weight. 

Lizzie stood up stiffly, angry and ashamed and unable to look at him. The jewels of the rich ladies made her blink, more deceptions and glittering cover-ups. No wonder Tommy belonged at the races.

And still, despite her knowledge of their worth, Lizzie held onto his parting words as if they were her last pennies. She wrapped them around herself just under her skin while she made eye contact with the Field Marshall. She held the words close as she moved to the door looked suggestively over her shoulder. She muffled herself in them as the man neared her, the smell of sweat and lust and cigarettes threatening to break her apart, slowly seeping through her defences.

By the time he reached for her hand, every alarm in Lizzie’s body was going off.

It was a necessity in her trade—the trade she used to have—to be able to sense violence. Not men who killed people. She had fucked many soldiers, and they felt very different. No, she must have a sense for those who liked to hurt, who got off on it. And those senses, well honed over the years, were blaring.

His touch on her shoulder was feather-light, so very careful.

Like a cat toying with a mouse.

“Take it off.” He didn’t say it loudly. He didn’t need to.

She kept calm. She smiled. She wheedled and teased. All she had to do was hold him off until Tommy got here. He would come any second.

And now the man’s grip was tight, pulling her across the stall, demonstrating that he could touch her however he wanted. She asked him —begged him—to take it slow. Tommy would be here any second.

He threw her down. His weight, thick and sour-smelling and all-consuming bore down on her, as immovable as a mountain. She was gasping, crying, didn’t know what she was saying. This was her nightmare. The nightmare she had always had, the one that she had thought she had escaped when she got her own desk.

And Tommy wasn’t coming.

His promises were nothing next to this man on top of her, this man pressing into her bare, exposed flesh. This was her body that he was touching, violating. 

No promises could change that. No love and no loyalty. 

The man thrust into her. Her head was slamming against the wall. She would have a bruise. Everything was too loud. There was shouting too. It sounded very far away.

The pressure abated. More shouting. He rolled off of her, turned.

There was Tommy.

Too late.

He had a gun cocked. 

The marshall rolled off of her, attacked him. They slammed into the wall while Lizzie crawled away, trying not to think, trying not to imagine the gun going off and killing them both. Trying not to hope for it.

The gun was on the ground.

Lizzie’s numb fingers found it. She was shaking. Tommy’s gun. The one that had sat on her kitchen table so many times, catching the dying sunlight. He had killed people with this gun. It didn’t feel so powerful in her hands. It shook. She was shaking, trying to aim.

She wanted to kill the Field Marshall. There was no doubt in her mind.

She pulled the trigger.

Nothing happened.

Was she not doing it right? All these years surrounded by guns and she had never fired one. How stupid was that? How could she have ever thought that charm could protect her, or experience? Nothing could protect her bleeding exposed body from the world. Not even this little gun that wouldn’t fire in her useless hands.

Pow!

Lizzie jumped, but it wasn’t her gun that had fired. Tommy had somehow managed to twist the Field Marshall’s own gun up to his chin and fire it.

The heavy, sour-smelling weight of him slipped to the floor, unmoving.

Tommy was gasping, shaking. Lizzie was too, in unison maybe. As if they had been through this together.

As if.

Tommy stepped towards her, contrite, conciliatory. Lizzie still had the gun.

“Where were you? Where the fuck were you? Fuck off. Fuck off!” She was hoarse, hysterical. She was crying. She couldn’t see. How could she let Tommy see her like this? She didn’t care. He hadn’t come. He’d been too late. His promises were as empty as everything else about their relationship.

He was talking to her calmly, like she was a horse.

Like a horse who’d just been raped.

Raped doing what he’d asked of her. She stumbled away from him, disgusted, disgusted by his smell and his eyes and the way that he still, after everything, did not understand.

When he told her to go, she went. And heard gunshots behind her.

***

It felt like she wandered for hours, but it must have only been a few minutes before she came upon a ladies bathroom. Some masochistic part of her decided to enter, needed to see the wreckage of her pretensions.

Sure enough, her dress was in tatters.

She was bleeding, face puffy. Nothing like the women in the fancy hats. She looked like something that belonged in a gutter. She splashed water over her face, felt it sting the fresh cuts. Closed her eyes. Breathed.

She needed to find Tommy again.

She needed to find Tommy and talk to him like a human being. Not crying or screaming or getting paid. She needed to make him understand what he had refused to see.

She would tell him that she loved him.

That she knew he would never love her back, that that was okay. What wasn’t okay was how he used her love. She would happily be his secretary if he still wanted her, but she wasn’t made for the world of guns and scars. She did not deserve that. Even just thinking the words made her feel better, like a weight lifting off her chest.

Without taking another look in the glass, Lizzie turned and left the bathroom, glad that no one had seen her. There were no cops anywhere to be found and far fewer ladies in fancy hats. Instead, there were Peaky Blinders lounging around. Clearly, Tommy’s larger plan had been a success.

Another win for Shelby Brothers, Limited.

Lizzie made a quick run for the bushes and vomited. Then she wiped her mouth and kept walking, scanning the crowd. 

There were Arthur and John. Surely Tommy would be with them. Lizzie walked over to them in a daze, not thinking about what they would think of seeing her there. 

“Lizzie? What—“ John’s open, innocent face turned to her. He looked shocked. Of course. She looked like she’d been dragged backwards through a bush. Lizzie felt an unexpected rush of warmth towards him, quickly followed by anger. How could he not know, after all this time, that this was what happened in the end?

“Can I have a smoke?” She heard herself say. She’d meant to ask about Tommy, but she took the cigarette instead. Her hands were shaking.

John was fluttering with concern. His words passed over her on the air, something about working. Gradually it filtered into her dulled mind that he thought that she had done this for herself, to make a little extra coin. Even the anger felt far away. He had no idea.

Lizzie opened her mouth, half toying with the idea of telling John instead. Admitting everything. 

But then Arthur shook her and said too loudly that they had won and the moment was gone. “We won.” It echoed in her head. Like when she’d heard the words on the radio, all those years ago. The men coming back from France had won. Lizzie had won. This was winning. This was living. This was dying.

John was looking at her with concern.

Poor, sweet, stupid, doomed John. She had to talk to him. The need was sudden and desperately urgent. It took a minute for her to force her slack tongue to cooperate. “I don’t see the same thing in your eyes that I do in Tommy’s. You should get out.” Her voice sounded wrong, hoarse and desperate.

John looked at her blankly.

“Lizzie, we won.”

And that was the problem. Lizzie took in Arthur, bouncing out of his seat on coke and adrenalin. John, so sincere in his naive belief that because they had won today they would not be the ones with bullets in their backs tomorrow. They didn’t see it, they wouldn’t see it until it was too late.

Tommy’s promises. They didn’t come true.

***

Some hours later, Lizzie found herself in the backseat of the car, next to Polly. She was fairly sure that Polly would not have wanted this arrangement, but Polly was very drunk, and it had been unanimously decided by the men still sober enough to decide anything at all that Lizzie should take her home.

They, apparently, knew nothing about how little the older woman respected her.

And so it went that Lizzie was bumping up the road to Birmingham after the longest day of her life being occasionally thrown nearly into the lap of Tommy’s ferocious aunt.

Lizzie’s eyes kept being drawn to the bloodstain, proud and red on her blouse.

The story, of how Polly had shot Inspector Campbell, had spread like wildfire. Polly had been offered many drinks. She had laughed about it.

The stain was drying dull and dark.

“What are you looking at?” Her voice was still a little slurred, but Polly was looking up at her with clear eyes, a different piercing to Tommy’s.

“Did it feel good?” Lizzie found herself asking, not sure if Polly would even be able to track. There was a long pause, and Lizzie thought she might have gone back to sleep. 

“It made me sick.” Polly was leaning against Lizzie, not looking at her. Lizzie was afraid that she’d be angry at her impertinence, but she just sounded tired. 

Lizzie had to know though.

“Sicker?” Ada hadn’t told Lizzie what Polly had done for Michael, but Lizzie could guess. It made her glad that she’d never had children. Not that it helped, at this point.

“No.” Polly sounded fully awake now. There was no hesitation. Lizzie let out a breath. 

“Good for you,” It wasn’t a congratulation, not really, but it was probably the nicest thing Lizzie had ever said to Polly. Tommy’s aunt had always looked down her nose at her. Too smart and proud and free to associate with poor, degraded, hopeless Lizzie. Now she was slumped practically in Lizzie’s lap and both of them were trembling in time with the bumps in the road.

There was a long silence.

“Why John?” Polly asked at last. Lizzie had to swallow a laugh that would have come out hysterical. It seemed so far away. Back then, she had thought that she had seen a lot. It was nothing.

But Polly had been honest with her.

“Because he needed me. He needed me for something other than—it’s all I’ve been, my whole life. All anyone has ever wanted from me. It was stupid. I knew Tommy wouldn’t let it happen. It wasn’t _logical._ ” Some of the old bile came hissing out on the word. She hadn’t found Tommy again at the racetrack. She’d seen Grace once, in the crowd. She could guess where he’d gone.

“Tommy makes mistakes.” It was the first time Lizzie had ever heard Polly say a word against him. It was almost a concession.

“I know.” They both knew, actually. It was why they were here, in the back of this car, clinging to each other.

“It isn’t all you are, Lizzie.” Polly said suddenly, after another lengthy pause. “If it were, you’d be—something else. I know I said…it’s not easy.”

And if it wasn’t precisely an apology, it was a new sort of feeling for Lizzie. And when that endless car journey finally ground to a halt, they would part, and Polly would be Lizzie’s boss, and she would treat her in the best way she possibly could have.  
As a secretary.


	12. If This Were In Health...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The aftermath of Grace.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I think that there will be two more chapters, not including this one, to take us to the end of season three. Hopefully just in time for season four. Thank you so much to those of you who have followed this little story in this little fandom. Here's to bringing in some new writers and readers with the advent of season four.
> 
> Enjoy, and if you do, please comment. It makes fic writers' days :)

Working for Tommy — just working for him — was easier in some respects. In other ways, not so much.

Lizzie was trying to move on. She really was. And she was doing a good job of it. She had finally gotten used to being a secretary full time, going to bed at a reasonable hour, having the funds to buy more than one dress. Slowly, the sting of not meaning anything to Tommy faded. She could mean something through doing good work. In a way, she supposed it had always been her work that attracted Tommy to her, but she tried not to think about it like that.

And there was another added bonus to her secretary work, one that she had never foreseen: her relationship with Polly. After that fateful day at Epsom, Polly had become noticeably less cold towards her. Gradually, as the two primary women working at Shelby Limited, they learned to get along. Lizzie figured that she was the third most knowledgable person when it came to business dealings these days, behind Polly and obviously Tommy. Neither Arthur nor John nor even Micheal knew so much, and by swapping bits and pieces with Polly, Lizzie could become even more informed.

Tentatively, she was happy.

Meanwhile, Tommy was tightening the reins. Lizzie never figured out exactly what happened at the racetrack that day, but whatever it was, it had ended with Grace’s return and news of baby Charlie. Lizzie was still angry enough at Tommy to bury the jealousy. If Grace wanted him to rip her apart, that was her choice. Lizzie hoped, for Grace’s sake, that she could get a few scratches in along the way.

It was about a year later that Lizzie learned that Grace’s ex-husband had killed himself.

That was when she decided that she needed a boyfriend.

Tommy said no relationships with foreigners. Lizzie chose an Italian. He was a little stupid and very gullible. A bit like John, maybe, if she squinted. John whose softness had lasted impressively long but was now bleeding away with each passing day. 

Even John wasn’t so much John anymore. Lizzie focused on her Italian, feeling the familiar tightness in her stomach that told her that this happiness too was finite, and she should stuff herself with what she could while she still had the chance.

Of course it would come to a head at Tommy’s wedding. Lizzie couldn’t even get self-pityingly drunk in peace. Of course it would be John they would send to hurt him—the Italian. Lizzie was too tired of it all to pretend that John doled out the beating for her, to protect her honour.

What a funny joke.

But Lizzie moved on, like she always did. It wasn’t like she had loved the man. He had loved her, maybe. She had found him distracting. That was the way it was with and men. Lizzie had stopped beating herself up over that fact a while ago. Hers was not a love story.

At least business was good.

***

She wasn’t even there when it happened.

Lizzie didn’t ever go to the grand functions. She was the legitimate, unglamorous side of the business. Tommy, in a nearly manic good mood, had told her she could have the evening off. It was almost funny that he thought she might have somewhere else to go.

So it was that Lizzie sat up late, alone, in her office, retyping records that had gotten water damage a few weeks ago. It was mind-numbing but pleasant work. Lizzie found herself listening to the strokes of the typewriter beating out the silence. It was so rare that anywhere in Birmingham should be quiet. Or maybe it was often like this. Maybe it was just that Lizzie used to have clients at this time of night, moaning and squirming all over her. That world felt so distant now, like it had happened to someone else.

The phone rang. Lizzie picked it up without considering the time. Tommy’s associates often kept odd hours.

“You’ve reached Shelby Brothers, Limited. Lizzie Stark speaking. How may I help you?”

“Oh. You’re there. Thank God.” It was Polly, but she sounded wrong. Like the words were being squeezed out of her throat. Decades of living in Small Heath had fine-tuned Lizzie’s sense for danger. Her heart rate quickened immediately. 

“What is it?”

“Listen. You need to hold all business. Send messages out to all our clients that everything is going on hold for a few days. Shut down the office. Then come to the house. Grace has been shot. It looks bad.”

“What?” But the line was already dead.

Numbly, Lizzie began composing messages. Grace. Shot. Being shot was not uncommon where Lizzie was from, but Grace had never belonged in Small Heath. Even her name was nicer than that. Lizzie remembered how she used to walk down the street, back when she was posing as a barmaid. Like the grime of Birmingham couldn’t touch her. 

Now she might never be free of it. Shot.

Tommy.

It was then that Lizzie started to feel afraid. Tommy had been walling himself off. It had started when he had hired her, and only become more pronounced over the past two years. The only person he let in was Grace. She had been shot.

Lizzie finished Polly’s instructions as quickly as she could, suddenly desperate to be at the house. She was shaking by the time she got in the car. She had learned to drive, finally, with all these cars just lying around. Tommy let her borrow them when she needed to run errands for the business.

Tommy.

She drove faster, heedless of the poorly made Birmingham roads. Quicker than she had thought possible, she was out of the city, speeding along country lanes towards the Shelby Estate. 

Only the servants were at the house when she got there. They let her in without a word. Everyone knew. Lizzie sat in the entry hall, at a loss as to what to do. Mary offered her tea. Lizzie declined. She didn’t think she could swallow anything.

She didn’t know how long she sat there. It might have been hours.

But finally, the door opened, and people came pouring through. Lizzie had never known this many members of the Shelby clan to be this quiet. They filed in like the funeral had already begun. Tommy was walking between Polly and Ada. They each had a hand on one of his shoulders. He looked as if he would wander off into the void if either one of them let go.

Lizzie stood up, useless. No one acknowledged her. Swallowing, she moved away from the family, towards the kitchens. Maybe there was something she could do there.

***

Lizzie helped with the funeral preparations. The phone that had so often been used to orchestrate shipping licences and back door deals was now busy with flower orders and condolence messages. Lizzie kept a list of who needed to send those condolences. She didn’t want to know what would happen to those who neglected to.

She found, in those days, that there was a lot that she didn’t want to know. She didn’t want to know what was in Tommy’s head when he spent all night out in the fields. She didn’t want to know what Arthur and John were planning for the other side of the business. She didn’t want to know what Grace’s body looked like, preserved until it could begin to decompose. She didn’t think about anything else.

After the funeral, the business went back to normal. Nothing else did. Tommy hardly saw anyone, and Lizzie could feel the resentment from John and Arthur every time they were called in. He told no one his plans. He didn’t sleep. He didn’t eat. Lizzie saw him more than most anyone else, and he still hardly spoke to her. 

A hush fell over the house. Everyone was waiting for something. No one knew what.

Lizzie wasn’t waiting. She was working. And trying to block everything else out. As if that had ever worked out for her.

“Mama!” Lizzie had come by the house with information about one of their clients too delicate to be relayed over phone, even in code. She was waiting nervously in the sitting room when she heard the cry.

A moment later, Charlie toddled in. “Mama!” He was clearly distressed. Lizzie looked around. A servant would be coming any second. Or Polly or Ada. This house was full of mothers.

No one came.

“Mama!” And the Mama he was looking for was never coming back.

“Here, Charlie, come sit with me, over here. I’m waiting to go see your Da.” She walked over slowly, scared he might spook, but little Charlie just turned curious blue eyes towards Lizzie and raised tiny fists. “Here, here.” She picked him up. He was heavier than he looked. Struggling a little bit, Lizzie moved both of them back to the chair, where she sat him on her leg.

Immediately, Charlie reached for her hair. Lizzie let him, even though it hurt. “Little man, where did your nurses go? Did you escape?” She bounced him a little on her knee, surprised at how natural it felt. It reminded her a little of the short time she’d spent with John’s kids. She shoved those memories away. Ancient history.

Charlie gurgled a little bit, wide eyes eating up the world around him.

Maybe Lizzie should have had kids of her own. As if.

“Mama?” Charlie was craning his tiny neck to try to see around her. Did he think it was hide-and-seek like when Grace hid her face behind her hands? Boo. She was never coming back.

Lizzie took hold of Charlie’s toes to keep herself from crying. “One little piggy went to market…”

After several engrossing rounds of little piggies, Charlie abruptly lost interest. He gurgled, looking away. Lizzie followed his gaze.

Tommy Shelby was standing in the doorway to his office. 

Despite his below average height, Lizzie had thought of him as a small man. Now she did. He looked wasted in his coat, his eyes set back deep in his head. She thought the hand on the doorframe might be there to help keep him on his feet. His voice, however, was hard.

“Where are his nurses?” Lizzie would not want to be those women when Tommy caught up to them.

“Dunno. Charlie was looking—he came in here, so I thought I should keep him for you.” Lizzie stood up, hoisting Charlie higher up on her chest. He was nearly too big to be held this way, but he clung to her. It made Lizzie strangely self-conscious, like she was forcing him to act this way.

 

“Thanks, Lizzie.” But his lips were barely moving, and he wasn’t really looking at her. Up close, he looked even worse, and Lizzie was almost hesitant to hand Charlie over, like she wasn’t sure if he could support the extra weight. Of course he could, and Charlie tucked his whole body into his father’s like he didn’t ever want to let go.

They were standing inches apart, and Lizzie was suddenly, violently reminded of another day with another baby. Lifetimes ago, before Grace, before the war, back when Lizzie thought she could survive selling clothes. She had been nearly a child then, and the baby Tommy held had been Finn, who was now nearly a man. She wondered if Tommy remembered it now too. If he wished he could go back to a world in which his father’s dalliances were his biggest worry. Lizzie would, in a heartbeat. 

Mary came rushing around the corner.

“Oh, Mr. Shelby, we’ve been worried sick! One of the new girls…” Lizzie didn’t listen to the convoluted explanation, stepping back to adjust her dress and hair where Charlie had pulled at it. She was more conscious of her appearance now than she used to be. She liked to be neat. It made her feel like no one could tear her apart.

“Lizzie. You were waiting for me. Before.” Tommy’s voice shook her out of her daze. Mary was gone. “The office. Come on.” Lizzie remembered belatedly the news she had to deliver, and hurried after him, feeling like an idiot. She was a little surprised that Tommy had remembered. He didn’t seem more than half present at best, but she should have known better than to underestimate him. 

She gave him her news quickly once they were in the office. She needed to get back to the city, and Tommy’s house felt like a crypt. The thought was both unfair and desperately sad, but it was also true.

“Thank you. For looking after Charlie.” He said it again when she’d presented her bit. Apparently her information didn’t merit discussion, at least not with her. 

“You already said. It was no bother. He’s a sweet boy.”

“Like his mother,” Tommy said, and his mouth twisted into something that by no stretch of the imagination could be called a smile. Sweet wouldn’t have been the first word that Lizzie would have used to describe Grace Shelby.

“I’m so sorry,” Lizzie blurted out, and the words sounded fake and hollow as soon as they were out of her mouth. How many times must they have bounced around these walls already, collecting in the air like dust?

“Come here, Lizzie.” They were standing in front of his large, oaken desk, and if Lizzie didn’t recognise the look in his eyes, she certainly knew the tone.

Her stomach twisted with a mix of emotions too complicated to make her register anything but vague nausea. She felt herself step forward even as she opened her mouth to protest.

“You said we weren’t to do this anymore,” as his hands found the buttons on her dress. It took him a second. Secretaries’ dresses were more complicated than whores’. And his fingers were trembling.

“I did. I’ve been making a habit of breaking my promises lately,” His voice burned with bitterness, and Lizzie nearly shied away even as she felt her body respond to his hands on her skin. 

“It doesn’t have to be me,” Lizzie protested as her dress slipped off her shoulders.

“Of course it does,” he said simply, before he turned her around and had her right there on the desk.

***

Lizzie was there when he got the letter. It came in like a normal piece of post, along with clients’ correspondences and business updates. Lizzie paid the scrawled handwriting on the front no mind at all. That was until Tommy read it, and his already pale face bleached white.

“What is it?” Lizzie asked, not at all expecting him to respond. She thought that he himself probably didn’t know he was going to say anything until the words were out of his mouth.

“Da’s dead.” For a moment, he lost the crisp authority he had gained over the years, slipping back into almost a mumble. Lizzie froze.

She had hated Mr. Shelby from the time she was nine years old, and Tommy had been hating him for years before that, but the knowledge didn’t stop her stomach from doing a sickening drop. Tommy was so alone in the world. His family, the thing that had kept him going since France, since maybe even before that, was crumbling. 

Tommy stood up, neatly folding the fateful letter into his breast pocket. Lizzie should say that she was sorry for his loss, but she couldn’t find the right words.

“I remember him,” was what she got out instead. 

“I hardly do,” he said, drily, and so insincerely that Lizzie flinched a little. “One less thing to worry about, him coming back. Come here.” He pulled her close, and Lizzie barely managed to suppress a sigh. This wasn’t going to help with anything. Again. 

But Lizzie found an extra little well of bravery just then, and she pushed Tommy gently away. She tried not to see the deep hollows of his eyes. “You don’t have to forget, you know, Tommy. Not all of it.” 

For a second he looked into her eyes, and she thought he might consider it. 

He looked away. “I don’t pay you to talk, Lizzie.”

Lizzie was getting really very tired of this desk.


	13. If This Were Rebellion...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The ladies get their feminism on.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one's short but it's...happy? I know, shocking. Only one more chapter until I'm caught up with the show. Hopefully I'll post the final chapter this week although you should know by now never to take my word on anything. 
> 
> Anyway, enjoy the...happy.

Sometimes, Lizzie really thought she needed a promotion. She worked all day keeping track of the constantly shifting elements of the legitimate business, dealt with whatever silent breakdown Tommy was going through on that particular day, and then made her way into the main office to consult with whoever else was trying to keep things running. The fact that that day Esme was the only soul to be seen should have been a relief, except that she was being nearly as much trouble as the men lately.

Cursing her rotten luck, Lizzie sat down to crunch sums. It was a skill she’d spent hours secretly practicing since she was too embarrassed to admit that she’d forgotten the little she’d learned at primary school. While she worked, of course Esme just sat there, heavily pregnant and snorting Tokyo. She often told Lizzie that it helped keep her steady, but considering her increasingly sour mood, Lizzie had her doubts. And there was no way it was good for the baby. There were times when it baffled Lizzie that she, out of all the sorry women associated with the Peaky Blinders, was the only one not to have any children. Lizzie was gradually realising, mostly by watching other be utterly incompetent, that she had an above average amount of sense. Certainly more than Esme.

And then Polly came stumbling in.

Polly didn’t often go on benders, but when she did, she went hard. Lizzie wondered briefly what had happened to make her so determined to get sloshed, then decided that she didn’t have the emotional energy to deal with whatever it was.

“I’ve forgot the combination,” Polly slurred, pawing vaguely at the door to the vault.

“24822.” Numbers. That, at least, she could help with. 

“Where d’you learn that?” Polly sounded a little impressed, if still mostly drunk. Lizzie’s brief satisfaction was snuffed out a moment later by Esme - who else?

“Tommy talks in his sleep,” she said snidely. 

“Shut up, Esme,” Lizzie snapped, unsure whether she was angry because it was true or because sleeping really wasn’t the word for what they did. And anyway, she’d seen Tommy do the combination over his shoulder. She was sure he’d noticed, but he hadn’t said anything. Probably because she wasn’t the one with the cocaine habit.

Sighing, she got up to help Polly’s alcohol numbed hands with the lock. Lizzie’s own brain was not particularly a place she wanted to be at the moment, so she would try to be helpful. It was a good way to remind herself that she was useful for more than bending over desks.

Then she caught herself. What was she trying to prove?

She was getting soft. Shit like this never used to make her sensitive. She shut the ledger decisively and looked Esme straight in the eyes.

“Well actually I am sleeping with Tommy, okay? Now and then. Because he wants to, now and then, when the mood takes him. Except we don’t sleep—hard to sleep, bent over a desk, isn’t it?” All right, maybe that was a little too honest. They were both looking at her now. “Happy?” She added, just to break the silence. Laughable, really, that women like Polly and Esme could be shocked by someone like Lizzie. Then again, maybe they weren’t shocked by her. Maybe they were just shocked that she knew it too. Knew what she was.

***

Of course, this day wouldn’t be complete without Linda—of all people—showing up.

Arthur’s wife bustled into the office, all golden-hair and cherub-cheeks. Even the set of her mouth was self-righteous. Lizzie wanted to tell her that puckering up like that wasn’t going to stop no one from knowing that that same mouth sucked Arthur’s cock. She wanted to say that she’d sucked it too, so how different could they really be?

In the interest of the company peace, Lizzie made it her policy not to speak to Linda at all.

Unfortunately, Linda was difficult to ignore, particularly when she was on a mission. Lizzie didn’t know another woman in the world who could swan up to Polly like that, totally unashamed even in the face of the older woman’s legendary death stare.

She went on and on in that prim little voice about how she had a message for them, the poor, sinful, immoral women of Shelby Brothers, Ltd. She was halfway through a clearly rehearsed speech about women marching before Lizzie even bothered to look up. 

“Those bastards down there shooting deer meat while I’m five months gone, sat here like a pudding.” That was Esme’s typical moaning, but Linda was looking at her like she just spoken a prophecy straight from the Almighty Himself. It was ridiculous, but also possibly the nicest way anyone had looked at Esme in a long time.

“Only one outside lavatory between the lot of us,” Polly was joining in now.

“Not consulted,” Esme added.

Lizzie’s mouth was open before she had a chance to think it through. “Bent over a fucking desk.” 

“Ladies, I honestly believe that those who march on Good Friday will have God on their side,” Linda finished fervently.

That might be stretching it a bit far.

 

Still, Lizzie couldn’t deny that she was interested. All the frustration of the morning, of the past few weeks, of the past few years, was beginning to wear on her. Tommy wouldn’t accept her help. She had been prepared to give her love in any form he would take it, but it was finally clear that he wanted no part in it. And all those men, the ones who had used her for years. They all thought they could take what they want and then leave her to rot. The worst part of it was that the Field Marshal didn’t even stand out particularly in the end. All of them had taken her and used her and thrown her out still begging for scraps. Then they spit on her, and told her the way she survived was shameful.

She was actually glad when Polly decided they would go to this march.

And by the time they got to the street, dressed in their best clothes, Lizzie could feel it in the air. It was something like the sense she got where she could tell that a certain man in her bed would be trouble, except it wasn’t like that at all. It was a sense, sure, but it was warm and almost solid and it connected them: Lizzie and Polly and Esme and Linda and all the rest. 

As they walked down the street, looking beautiful against the dust and grime of Birmingham, Lizzie couldn’t help but see them differently. Here, Esme wasn’t a lazy, unfaithful addict. Polly wasn’t a bitter, washed-out drunk. Linda wasn’t a tight-arsed, condescending prude. Lizzie wasn’t a pathetic, passive, whore. 

Or rather, they were those things. But they were other things as well. They were still standing after who knew how many had laid down and given up. They were brave. They were smart enough to survive a world that did its best to kill them. They were successful. They wore the furs and hats of that success because they had clawed and fought and taken what they wanted. So if they were worn, they were still beautiful. It could not be denied that day, none of it, by any man who happened to wander by. 

Nor could any of those men miss the most important fact, that which gave Lizzie a spring in her step and a feeling in her chest that she didn’t quite have a name for.

The fact was this: they were women, and they were on the move.


	14. If This Were the Reward...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The final betrayal. And what comes after.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And we have made it! On the very day that season 4 begins. My timing is impeccable. Just kidding, it took me nearly a year to write this thing, sorry.
> 
> Thank you so much to everyone who stuck to this story throughout that time, and those of you who came in later on. I am so happy every time someone enjoys one of my fics, especially in this fantastic, tiny fandom. I really hope there are some new season 4 people here too!
> 
> On that note, I'm marking this story as complete. However, there is a decent chance I will be adding to it over season 4 if inspiration strikes. 
> 
> Again, thank you all so much for reading, kudos-ing, and reviewing; it makes my day :)

It felt like the execution of a will. Tommy’s massive office felt cramped, stuffed full of every major player in the combined forces of Shelby Brothers, Ltd and the Peaky Blinders. Lizzie sat to the side, as always, never quite sure where else to go. All the other women were family or wives, the men were family or blood brother. Lizzie was something else. Still, at least she no longer doubted her right to be here. She was as deep in it as any of them.

Well, not as deep as Tommy.

He sat there, behind his too wide desk, as if he were surveying his entire empire. In a way, he was. These people represented each of his holdings. The desk removed him from them. The thick briefcase no doubt brimming with cash was what was supposed to bring them together. 

The atmosphere might have been celebratory. Charlie was safe, the money was theirs, the Russians were gone. But Tommy was wearing the coat that made his shoulders look about twice as broad as they really were, and Lizzie was uneasy.

He passed the cash out solemnly, almost mournfully. The others shifted uncomfortably, awkward with how boldly he was paying them for their services. That was the funny thing about gangsters, they’d boast for hours about cutting me who didn’t pay them, but treat them honestly like capitalists, and they balked. The excuses were honour, duty business. It let them play at still being family. But Lizzie wasn’t a gangster, and if she was comfortable with anything, it was being paid for her services. 

Tommy passed judgment on each of them as he gave them the money. His cold blue eyes told them their worth in the starkest terms. Lizzie managed not to stiffen when he came to her.

“I want it to be know that some nights it was you that kept my heart from breaking, no one else.” Lizzie’s face was a mask, but she felt a lump grow in her throat. There was a kind of triumph in knowing that he recognised it. At last, he was paying her for the right thing. Their eyes met for only a brief moment. There was raw sincerity there, and it worried Lizzie. He was acting like this was the end, but Tommy Shelby always had a play. What scheme could require this kind of honesty?

Lizzie looked discretely around the room, but no one else seemed to be picking up on it. All eyes were now on Polly as she stood up to confront Tommy. Powerful and weathered, she was the only person who ever looked at Tommy like that. It struck Lizzie that they looked like actors in a melodrama, Tommy with his big coat and Polly with her fancy dress. They both made their profiles count. 

“I would like to propose an alternative,” Polly said confidently. Lizzie knew that Polly had the right of it. For all her hardness, Polly still lacked Tommy’s bone deep cynicism. He might know she was right too, but whatever plan had brought this meeting about was stopping him from admitting it. Then Ada spoke up in agreement, and Lizzie found herself chiming in as well. The ghost of the day they marched fluttered around them, but Tommy’s face remained frozen.

Even as Arthur took his leave, saying goodbye to everybody, Tommy didn’t move. He just stood at the front of the room, watching them all. The atmosphere was so heavy that Lizzie found herself near tears. She hadn’t ever particularly liked Arthur, but there was no denying that he was Small Heath, as much as The Garrison or the rubbish piles, maybe more.

And then Tommy spoke up, and the tears dried up along with her well of optimism.

“You can go, but you won’t get far, Arthur.” It was all the worse because it wasn’t a threat. Tommy said it almost tenderly. It was just a statement of truth. He listed out the charges as flatly as any judge. “Murder, sedition, conspiracy to cause explosion.”

The reaction started slow, everyone trying to comprehend what Tommy was saying. Then, Arthur and Esme started yelling. Linda wiped away at tears. Polly looked like she was about to slap him. Lizzie found herself watching Curly’s childish face, wondering how much he understood. Betrayal, he understood that, certainly.

Tommy plowed on. He had factored all of their human reactions into his plan. Including how composed Lizzie herself was. She felt detached as he said, “Lizzie, you’ll take the money down to the cellar.” She stood up, trained to obey. Of course this was the plan that required so much honesty. Honest, so none of them would see that it was all a dream. None of this money would be handed out. It was symbolism, like the room and the desk and all of them assembled here. Tommy playing at democracy, at choice. Polly must feel like such a dupe for thinking that he would ever take her opinion into account, that he would ever have brought them all here without first laying out every step. He had probably anticipated her reaction to the money, known it would delay them long enough for the coppers to arrive. Lizzie was disgusted, but she couldn’t find it in herself to curse him. They all paid their prices.

She took the money down to cellar. 

When she returned, the house was eerily empty. A few minutes ago, it had felt cramped, now her every step echoed uncomfortably loudly. 

She didn’t know why she went looking for Tommy.

She knew she should keep away. One look at Tommy’s face when he was giving them the news was enough to tell how much this would hurt him. There was nothing he liked less than people seeing him when he was vulnerable, when he was in pain. But Lizzie had seen, and it may not have helped either of them much, but that was how it was. No going back, for any of them.  
He wasn’t hard to find. All she had to was follow the happy gurgles of baby Charlie. Mary must be around somewhere, but she was clearly smart enough to keep her distance from Tommy at the moment. Lizzie poked her head around the door and sure enough, Tommy and Charlie were seated on the floor of the nursery. Tommy was murmuring to his son too quietly for Lizzie to hear. It was a private moment.

Lizzie walked right in and sat down opposite them. “You’ve done it now.” He looked up at her slowly, icy eyes hooded.  
“I have indeed. Are you leaving?” She knew that if she yelled at him now, he would take it. He would accept any accusations that she flung at him, and he’d be right to. But once again, Lizzie found herself unable to press the advantage.

“Why would I be leaving?” She said instead.

“Don’t sell yourself short, Lizzie. You have skills now.” He wasn’t trying to sound condescending. Or maybe he was. He was certainly pushing her away.

“I’ve always had skills.” She didn’t expect him to blush, and he didn’t. “Just never had anyplace else to go with them.”

He nodded. “You and me both. Looks like we’re stuck with each other.”

Seeing as that had been Lizzie’s whole life, it wasn’t funny. Tommy was examining her, trying to read her. She never understood why she was hard for him to figure out. This time was no different.

“So, are you cursing my name right now, wondering how I could do such a thing?” His voice was twisted, ugly, nearly broken. This was not Tommy’s dream. While Lizzie could sit on this floor and play pretend, no part of this was what Tommy had wanted. But if it had been, he would not have been the man he was. And Lizzie loved that man.

“No,” she said, patiently, because he could never remember just how well she knew him. “I know exactly how you could do this.”

“Oh. And how is that?” He asked, falsely casual, bouncing Charlie up and down on his knee.

“Once, a very long time ago, I asked you why you were going off to war. You said you flipped a coin. It was a hell of an unlucky coin, but I don’t think that would stop you doing it. You just play games with more than two sides now.” She paused, needing his reaction. 

“And?” He asked after a moment, but she could see in his eyes that he knew that she knew. He hardly ever talked about anything in the past that wasn’t business, and sometimes not even that. But everyone else was gone, and now he was just waiting for her to say it.

“That night, you said, ‘I’m a gambling man, Lizzie Stark.’ And today you bet the house. Literally.” He looked at her in silence, the clock on the mantel loudly ticking out the seconds.

“Yes I did,” he said at last. “Do you hate me for it?” It wasn’t insecurity in his voice. More like bleak confidence.

“Are you going to win it back?” She asked, just a little gratified to realise she could still surprise him.

“I am.” He almost smirked.

Lizzie looked him in the eye, and they sat there, looking at each other, not saying anything. Then, Charlie started giggling for no apparent reason. Both of him looked down at him. “Well that’s good, then,” Lizzie said to Charlie. 

“Whenever I think it’ll get easier. Whenever I think I don’t have any left to lose, I’m wrong. There’s always more to risk.”

Lizzie became acutely aware of her situation at that moment, sitting in the nursery with Tommy and his son, in a huge house, sunlight streaming through the windows, turning everything a dappled gold. She looked at Tommy, so very tired, and so very unwilling to let up for anything. It wasn’t faith in anything that drove him. Lizzie had thought it was faith in him that kept her here, but she had lost that she wasn’t even sure when. 

No, not faith, but a flip of a coin. What were the chances Lizzie Stark would have ended up here? 

The chance was Tommy.

“There’s always more to gain,” she said, and she wouldn’t have it any other way.


	15. If This Were Peace...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lizzie is pregnant, Tommy is avoiding everyone, and something has to give. When it does, things actually could be worse.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guess what? This fic that was finished? It is not finished. I actually wanted to write chapters for earlier episodes in season four (the arch scene!), but Tommy's 'vacation' (massive scare quotes) was calling to me. I might go back later and edit the chapter order if I come up with a good premise for another season four chapter (and I'm open to suggestions if anyone is itching for Lizzie's hot take on any of the plot lol), but for now, here you go.
> 
> Comments feed my soul. And also the amorphous fic monster that I keep in my basement. It gets very hungry.

Everyone at the house tried to console Lizzie when Tommy disappeared. Ada told her that it was temporary, and that he would come to his senses eventually. Men were just like that. Linda said that the rest would help him find God. Polly assured her that she would knock his brains back into him. They all shot her pitying looks when they thought she wasn’t looking, and they stopped talking when she entered the room.

Poor Lizzie, knocked up and alone.

Strange, really, that it had taken this long. People had thought this would be her destiny since she was a teenager, but she had always avoided it. Now, when it finally came for her, Lizzie wasn’t angry or depressed, not like the other women she’d known. More than anything, she was annoyed. Trust Lizzie Stark to be desperately in love with the man who got her pregnant, a wealthy man who promised to take care of her, but who disappeared for months at a time. A nice, twisty old fairytale.

Her belly grew bigger. She cried randomly and irrationally. She was bored out of her mind at the big house that Tommy had bought her. She took up knitting, put it down again. She started begging Ada to come to her house and have lunch, just to get a touch of gossip and excitement. She wondered whether the same old punters were fucking the same old whores back in Small Heath and even managed to work up a bit of nostalgia for those days. Sometimes, she thought about Tommy, alone with Charlie and Frances in his own big house. She called him on the telephone. He never answered. Polly’s face turned into a rictus of stress and guilt every time she asked about him. She stopped asking.

And then one day, completely out of the blue, the phone rang.

She was reclining in her sitting room, feeling nauseous and utterly failing at cross-stitch when it happened.

“Lizzie Stark speaking.”

“It’s me.” Tommy. Lizzie felt tears spring to her eyes, and she had to stuff her fist in her mouth to stop herself making a noise. Stupid hormones. “I thought you should know. I’m coming back to Shelby Limited. The vacation’s over.”

“I heard you were sick.” He still sounded it. His voice was thin and raspy, like he hadn’t spoken in too long. Or like he’d been screaming.

“Vacations don’t agree with me. I hope you’ve been good, Lizzie.” She rolled her eyes automatically.

“I’m coming to see you.” She would not have their first meeting in three months be when she visited the office. Romance might not cover their relationship, but it was worth more than that. 

“No!” He answered too quickly, too sharply. Lizzie’s hackles were up immediately. “I’ll be back in a week. I need to—you’ll see me then.”

Lizzie took a lot of shit from Tommy, and she knew it, but not with something like this. All these extra emotions could be useful. “What are you trying to shield me from?” She asked, just as sharply.

The other end of the line remained silent.

Lizzie sighed. “Tommy Shelby, for someone so bloody smart, you have a very selective memory. I’ve seen a lot, you know. I’m coming over.” She hung up before he could say another word. It was the safest way with him, sometimes.

When it came down to it, Lizzie found herself weirdly nervous about going to his house. She took nearly an hour to dress herself, not even sure who she was trying to impress. She was bloated and pregnant and felt so unbalanced that she kept having to catch herself on furniture. Tall, thin women, were not meant to grow babies on their front. It threw everything off. 

Finally, after all that fuss, she decided she was being silly and just wore her favourite housedress. Then, she spent the entire drive over doing her best to rip apart the seams with restless fingers.

Frances met her at the door. Her face was drawn and worried, but she smiled tiredly at Lizzie. “Ms Stark. Mr Shelby is waiting for you.” Lizzie smiled back.

“Thank you.” She moved to pass her, but Frances caught her arm.

“Ms Stark. Mr. Shelby is—not well.”

“He said he was better.”

“He is recovering, but…I don’t think he knows how bad it was.” Lizzie’s head spun a little. Frances was scaring her.

“Thank you for the warning. You’re a good woman,” she said, thinking in a detached way how strange it still was to be of a higher station than a maid. She had certainly spent more time on her knees. Lizzie suppressed a hysterical giggle. 

Tommy was in his study when she entered, and he was wearing a suit. At first, Lizzie thought Frances was being dramatic. He looked no worse than he had after the war, or after Grace, although the bar was admittedly not high. But then she moved closer. She could see that Tommy had lost weight again, an alarming amount in so short a time, and he hadn’t had any to spare. His glasses were practically hanging off his lethal cheekbones. He didn’t stand to greet her.

“Lizzie,” he said stiffly, and she saw him take in her swollen belly, her ungainly walk. He didn’t look away, but she thought he wanted to. 

It was almost endearing, the front he put up for her. She was also very done with it.

“Tommy,” she said, and leaned down to the chair to hug him. “I’ve missed you.” She wasn’t being coy or manipulative. It was simply true. She always missed him.

He stiffened in her grip, and she felt the fragility of his bones, too close to the surface. His whole body was trembling slightly. She felt huge next to him, wishing she could siphon off some of the pregnancy weight and plop it onto his bones.

“What the hell happened to you?” She asked when she pulled away.

“Peace,” he said with a wry smile. “Peace happened.”

It took her a second, but she got there eventually. “Like after France?” She asked, remembering the way he had collapsed on her bed, worn away to less than nothing. It had been peacetime then too. One of the few peacetimes she could remember now.

“A bit,” he paused, looking at her with those unfathomable eyes. “Yeah. No, worse.”

She didn’t give him the satisfaction of shock and horror, even though her nausea returned with a vengeance. He didn’t need that from her, from anyone. She nodded, cleared her throat.

“Makes sense. I’d like to talk somewhere more comfortable, if that’s all right with you. Not to be presumptuous, but…your bedroom?”

She surprised Tommy into a huff that turned into a cough. When he recovered, he wheezed, “Presumptuous…you’re carrying my baby. And where’d you start learning words like that, anyway?”  
It was so very him to fixate on that change over all the more important ones. “We’re all a long way from Watery Lane, Tommy. Come on now,” She reached out a hand to pull him up. He drew back, a shadow crossing his face.

“Give me a minute. You go up. I have…work to do.”

Lizzie frowned. “You don’t go back to work until next week. You’re still on vacation. Now, come.” She pulled on his bicep, and he stood up with her. Immediately, he began to sway dangerously.

“Whoa,” she said, taking a step back to steady them both. “You all right?” 

It had been a very long time since she had seen Tommy Shelby look embarrassed. “I’m still—weak. I—you should—not with the baby.” She ignored his half sentences, slinging one of his arms around her shoulder. He was disturbingly light. With the baby, she probably weighed more than he did. 

They made their slow way out of the study, his breath growing laboured, a light wheeze at the back of his throat.

“You said you were better.” She was panting now, halfway up the stairs. Her baby was kicking crossly.

“I am,” he said, the self-deprecating smile back on his face. Lizzie swallowed her pain.

“Right. Ok. We move now or we never make it to the top of the stairs. While we’re here, what would you have done if I had left you down there?”

Tommy shook his head, still catching his breath. “Have Frances carry me up. You’re pregnant, and I have no dignity.” 

Lizzie laughed at that because it was so far from funny. Tommy wheezed, “look at us, eh? Look at us.”

Somehow, they didn’t fall and die on the stairs, nor did Lizzie go into premature labour. It was a win all around, but Tommy was sweating and shaking uncontrollably by the time they made it to his bed. Someone had cleaned his room, but poorly. Lizzie could see empty bottles peaking out under the closet curtains. Lizzie’s back was killing her. She collapsed on the bed next to him. Of course, he curled away from her, pressing himself into the far corner.

Another coughing fit seized him, and he gagged.

“This is better?” She asked again when he’d stopped, afraid to touch him despite how much she wanted to. He didn’t answer for a while, and when he did, she couldn’t have expected his words less.

“This reminds me of that one night. The time I slept in your whorehouse. The first time. You remember?”

That was a stupid question. Of course she remembered. The night his father had beat him so badly he had fallen in the streets. The first of many times he had lain her bed. They had been children then. Part of her wanted to go back to the that time, before all the blood and smoke. She hadn’t been happy, then, but maybe she could have been.

Lizzie shook herself. She was being stupid. She was no longer a child. Soon, she would be a mother. 

Right then, sitting there in that dim room that still smelled faintly of sweet smoke, Lizzie decided that she was done hiding, lying, whatever it was. She and Tommy had burned their bridges long ago, and there was a baby on the way.

“I fell in love with you that night,” she said, and the words, finally out in the air, didn’t sound so big.

“How old were you?” There was no way to read what he was thinking.

“Nine. It sounds stupid now. I know you don’t—not the way I do. I never thought you would.”

“Lizzie—“

The aborted sentence sat heavy in the air between them. Neither of them knew what to say, and Lizzie didn’t feel any better for having told him. Her child did a flip in her stomach, and she put a hand on the bump. She hadn’t made the real confession, hadn’t told him what was really bothering her. There had been a time when that was the big secret, but that was the past, so long ago, like a fairy tale.

Her real question did another flip in her gut. She pressed the back of her hand to her mouth, studiously not looking at Tommy. When she took it away, the words fell out too, all in a jumbled rush. 

“Will you promise not to love her any less than Charlie, because she wasn’t Grace’s? I’m not—I know I’m not her. I know none of us are. But she has no part in it. She’s just a baby,” Lizzie babbled. She couldn’t look at him, didn’t want to chance that for once, she’d be able to read his reaction. For a moment, nothing happened. She realised her nails were digging painfully into her own arms, and she loosened her grip.

Then a pale, shaking hand reached out for her. She realised he was trying to get her to move closer. Had Tommy ever initiated contact with her when it wasn’t for sex? She didn’t want to think about that and all that it meant. Instead, she pushed herself to the corner of the bed, her bloated frame dwarfing Tommy’s fragile one. She was crying, she realised distantly. Again.

She could feel Tommy’s deep voice rumbling through her own bones, harmonising with her sobs. “Oh Lizzie, she’ll be a Shelby,” he said quietly. “For better and for worse. I don’t know that that’s any comfort, but there it is.”

Lizzie hiccuped. So many emotions were coming all at once that she couldn’t even begin to categorise them. “I can’t stop crying. I’m sorry. I hate babies,” she sobbed.  
Tommy had a hand in her hair, stroking like he didn’t even know he was doing it. His voice was far away. “Grace used to—Grace told me that they did a test once—in a fancy hospital—where they hooked men up to machines and made them feel the pain of giving birth. None of them could take it for more than ten minutes. She was very smug about it,” he was crying too. Her hair was wet with his silent tears. 

“I’m afraid. I don’t know if I can take it,” she blurted out. The honesty ripped through her like a barb. She was being flayed. She hadn’t thought that there were any ways left for Tommy to turn her inside out, but she had been wrong.

“You can. You’ve stood a hell of a lot worse. You’re a Shelby too, you know? I’m sorry about that. And you’re the worst kind, too.”

“What? The worst Shelby?” She asked blurrily, trying to pull herself together. She didn’t feel like he was making sense, but maybe she was just falling apart.

“Yeah. You’re one of the ones that survives.” And that she understood. Both of them were. And she knew that was why, too. Why Lizzie was carrying Tommy’s baby when it could have been any woman in the world. When Lizzie herself could make a list of all the women Tommy would rather it be. Because she was left and he was left. Because they survived. Because they were lying broken on the bed again, for the hundredth time and not for the last.

Lizzie curled further into Tommy, feeling the insistent tug of exhaustion on her bones. She turned her face into his shoulder.

“I’m glad you’re coming back,” she said into his collar bone. She didn’t mean for him to respond. Wasn’t even sure she meant for him to hear, but he did.

“There’s nothing else,” he said quietly, and he only sounded half heartbroken.


	16. If This Were Class...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lizzie goes for a dinner. It's much more stressful than it sounds.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another miscellaneous entry in this story, set after season four. I do want to go back and fill in some season four bits, but don't currently have any in progress. 
> 
> Enjoy!

Lizzie held the letter out in front of her like it was a bomb. Slowly, she walked through their London apartments, staring straight ahead. Looking around made her dizzy, the letter reawakening the sense of surreal-ness that she’d thought she’d gotten over already. She had an apartment in London. Or rather, Tommy Shelby, MP, had an apartment in London. One that he sometimes shared with Elizabeth Shelby. Lizzie felt only the vaguest of connections to this person, the one to whom the letter was addressed. Elizabeth Shelby. Lizzie made her way across the push carpet of the sitting room and knocked on the study door, trying to control her breathing and resist the instinct to crumple the letter at the same time.

“Come in,” Tommy’s voice was muffled behind the sturdy wood.

Lizzie entered, painfully aware of her shaking hands. Tommy was seated behind the desk, wearing his spectacles and pouring over some piece of legislation or other. That was what he spent most days doing, now, when he wasn’t fielding calls from Birmingham, that is.

There were those who would say that Tommy had run for Parliament for the power, for the chance to send yet another ‘fuck you’ to the government he had once been willing to die for. They would be right. 

But Lizzie also knew that he had once promised a girl that he would change the world.

“What’s happened?” His voice broke her out of her thoughts. Her lack of composure must have been obvious. “Are the children all right?” He, of course, sounded perfectly calm.

“What?” Lizzie was thrown for a second. “Oh. Yes, they’re fine. At the zoo, remember?” Frances had taken Charlie and baby Ruby to the London Zoo that morning. Charlie had been ecstatic, already sharing his father’s love for animals. “It’s not that. I’ve gotten a letter.”

“And?” Tommy had relaxed almost imperceptibly, but his eyes were still boring into her. Lizzie hesitated.

“Spit it out.”

“It’s a letter from Eleanor Beecham, Albert Beecham’s wife,” she said, all in a rush.

“Who?”

“Beecham, MP for Bristol. His wife. Sent me a letter.”

Tommy took his glasses off and rubbed a hand over his face. “Jesus Christ, Lizzie, you were acting like it’s another bloody black hand. What does this Beecham woman have on you?”

Lizzie took a deep breath. “She wants me to go to dinner.”

“What?” Tommy looked genuinely dumbfounded.

“Apparently it’s a bit of a tradition. Newly elected MPs wives go for dinner.”

Tommy snorted. “You do realise I’m busy.” He put his glasses back on, moving as if to go back to work. Lizzie grabbed his arm, not understanding how he could be so nonchalant about this.

“Tommy! I can’t do this! What if they find out?”

“Find out what? That you’re a whore?”

“Very tactful. No. Or, well, yes, but I mean…what if they find out that I’m…not one of them?”

Tommy was finally really looking at her now. She felt silly for being so panicked about a dinner, and her old self would have been laughing, but this was her life now. If she couldn’t blend in, it would ruin everything they had worked for.

“I’m just as much Watery Lane as you are, Lizzie. I do all right in bloody Westminster,” he said evenly. He wasn’t teasing anymore, at least. But of course he didn’t understand. How could he?

“But you’re…you,” she tried to protest, lamely.

Tommy huffed, the closest sound he got to a laugh since Grace had died. “Am I, though?”

Lizzie stared. It had never occurred to her, somehow, that Tommy ever felt like a fraud. That he ever waited for people to turn around and tell him he wasn’t supposed to be here, that it was all some elaborate joke. But now he stood up, walked around his desk, and took her hand.

“Look. You’ll be fine, Lizzie. You’re young and charming and much more intelligent than most of those old money cows.” Lizzie felt herself light up in that ridiculous way she did every time Tommy gave her a compliment. “Just complain about the nanny and how you never get to wear your nice pearls since the baby. Oh, and how I work all the time and we never have sex anymore.”

Lizzie nearly choked. “What?”

“Women talk about these things.”

“How the hell do you know that? And what if—what if they ask about our wedding that never happened? What do I do then?” 

“Well, don’t show them the fake marriage certificate. That’d be laying it on a bit thick.” The corner of his mouth twitched slightly.

Lizzie scowled at him.

He shook his head at her. “For fuck’s sake, you’re giving them far too much credit. They’re not Scotland Yard. Just talk nonsense. Now, I really do need to work.”

Lizzie sighed, resolving to keep her head and see this through. She didn’t want Tommy thinking her weak. Although…

“My fake husband works all the time and we never have sex anymore,” she said, simpering a little.

Tommy rolled his eyes, but leaned in to kiss her anyway. She pulled his glasses off and set them on the desk without breaking contact. Sometimes she lost track of whether she and Tommy were pretending to be in a relationship, or pretending not to be in a relationship.  
To her shame, most of the time she didn’t care.  
Once more, onto the desk.

***

Eleanor Beecham’s house was not bigger than Lizzie’s own country mansion. But it was in Central London, and Lizzie knew what she and Tommy’s three bedroom apartment had cost, so there was really no blaming her for being slightly overawed when the butler showed her in. Lizzie’s heart was beating so loudly in her throat that she nearly didn’t hear him ask for her coat. She ended up handing it over in a jumbled rush, and no sooner had she done so than he was holding open another door, announcing:

“Mrs. Elizabeth Shelby.” 

Lizzie hurried through, barely saving herself from tripping on the carpet. She had no time to get an impression of the room before she was assaulted by the smell of perfume and a firm, gnarled handshake.

“And you must be Mrs. Shelby! My, you’re tall. I’m Eleanor. It’s so good of you to come,” the small, elderly lady in front of her said, incredibly lively despite her obvious age.

“Please, call me Lizzie,” Lizzie blurted out. Mrs. Shelby made her think of Grace.

“Oh, how very…down to earth of you.” Lizzie tried to figure out whether that was an insult, but before she had the chance, little Eleanor was spinning her to face the rest of the room. “Abigail Taylor from Surrey, Elizabeth Bines from Southampton, Constance Montague from Islington and Victoria Russell from Nottingham. Of course, this is just a few of us. It is so very difficult to coordinate everyone’s busy schedules, so I do hope you’ll forgive us.” 

If there had been any more of them, Lizzie would probably have vomited. As it was, she tried her best to smile at the glamorous women who nodded towards her. They were all older than she was, except perhaps for Constance, and they were certainly all infinitely better suited for this gilded sitting room than she was. Lizzie had been around wealth for the past few years, certainly, but this was different. This was class.

“It’s lovely to meet you all,” Lizzie managed weakly, trying desperately to get ahold of her vowels. By the looks on their faces, she wasn’t doing a very good job. Awkwardly, she found her seat, heart still trying to beat its way out of her throat. She dreaded the inevitable questions, particularly since, at the moment, she thought she might be sick if she opened her mouth. Fortunately, she was saved by one of the staff, who arrived just then to tell them about lunch, and for the moment, at least, all eyes were not on Lizzie. 

Her reprieve did not last nearly long enough. “…John simply never comes home anymore. He’s a part of this new supper club, he says, but Lord knows what they actually get up to…” Abigail—who was middle aged and doing a respectable job of hiding it—was saying. There were hums of agreement from the other women. Lizzie tried to look like she understood what they were talking about.

“It wasn’t like that in my day, I can tell you. No man was ever to be caught eating out of the house,” Eleanor said decisively. Then she rounded on Lizzie. “What about yours then? Is Mr. Shelby already spending all his time at the clubs?”

Lizzie was sure there was a right answer to this question, but she had no clue what it was. Damn Tommy Shelby for putting her in this situation. She swallowed. “He spends most of his time working, reading the legislation and such. He’s a bit new to politics, really. Lots to catch up on,” she said hesitantly.

For some reason, the other women started laughing. “Well, that’s a new one!” The other Elizabeth hooted. She was a plain, thin woman, with a disproportionally loud laugh. “I thought Mr. Shelby seemed a bit young to be the respectable type. And to think our husbands are off cavorting with whores and—”

“Elizabeth!” Eleanor scolded.

“Sorry, waitresses. But they’re off doing that while yours is actually reading those dreadfully dull laws. I can’t decide whether you’re lucky or not.”

Lizzie went so scarlet at those words that the other women couldn’t fail to notice.

“Oh, don’t be so scandalised,” Elizabeth continued. “We only have to be ignorant in public.” 

“Of course, but it’s no use frightening off the innocent ones.” Victoria smiled brightly at her. “Let’s change the subject. Don’t you have a baby? Boy or girl?”

Lizzie smiled back with relief. Victoria was dressed rather severely, but her dark eyes glittered kindly. Crisis averted. Briefly, Lizzie caught eyes with Constance, who looked far too young to be married to an MP and still hadn’t spoken. She kept watching Lizzie even after she turned to address the rest of the table and politely answer Victoria’s question.

“Her name’s Ruby. Tommy and I haven’t been married long. His first wife died.” She didn’t know why she said that except she was sure it was going to come up. And pity was better than questions.

“How awful,” Constance said, finally speaking. Her tone was sympathetic, with something sharp in it that Lizzie couldn’t quite define. “Did you know her?”

 

“Yes. We all—I grew up with Tommy. Birmingham’s a small place, really.” That was a lie. It was the second largest city in England. It was only Small Heath that was small. But no one called her on it.

“How romantic,” Abigail picked up blithely. John and I grew up together as well. Well, I grew up. Don’t know what he was doing all that time.” She laughed, a little shrilly, but the conversation moved away from Lizzie after that.

By the time they finished the sandwiches, Lizzie was beginning to think that she might just be able to get away with this after all. She quickly learned that short, barbed complaints were the best way to fit in. It was truly amazing how many things these wealthy women had to complain about. Their husbands, their maids, their children, the other wives, the food at official functions…the list was endless. Lizzie did her best to join in, channeling Esme’s put upon manner as best she could, except of course not mentioning cocaine. Lizzie had to stifle a giggle at that thought.

“Are you all right?” Eleanor asked without missing a beat. Lizzie cursed internally. The moment she let her guard drop just a little…

“I’m fine. May I ask where the toi—lavatory is?” Lizzie said, blushing only a little. With relief, she made her escape and then proceeded to spend a solid ten minutes in the toilet, fixing her makeup and cursing Tommy extremely thoroughly. When she got back to the flat, he would hear all about her little adventure, and she better get some damn sympathy. She imagined what Polly would say when she related the experience the next time she was in Birmingham and smiled. The look on her face would almost be worth it.

Feeling a little better, Lizzie took one more deep breath and left the toilet. 

“Lizzie, can I have a word?” Constance was waiting for her just outside, holding a makeup bag despite already flawless features. Her tone was innocent, and her eyes sparkled.

Feeling ambushed, Lizzie stuttered a little. “O-of course. What do you need?”

“Is it true that you’re married to a gangster?”

Lizzie choked. “Excuse me?”

Constance took a quick step in. Lizzie had to fight the urge to shrink back, despite being half a foot taller than the other woman. She spoke quietly enough that Lizzie was forced to lean in even closer, but her voice vibrated with suppressed intrigue. “Herbert says that Tommy Shelby is a gangster, and he paid his way into Westminster.”

“Tommy’s a good leader,” Lizzie said quickly, because it was true, but Constance wasn’t fooled.

“Did he kill his first wife? Is that why he married you?”

Grace, lying on the dance floor, bleeding all over her sapphire. “No! No—he’s very loyal.”

“Is he loyal to you?” 

“He’s a good man,” Lizzie said, not sure if she thought it was true, but unwilling to let this nosy rich woman talk about Tommy like that. 

“How much is he paying you?”

Constance might as well have slapped her in the face, and her reaction showed.

“Clearly not enough,” Constance said drily, an infuriating smirk appearing on her prim mouth. 

It was the smirk that did it. Lizzie took a small step forward, forcing Constance to back up and crane her neck. She made herself smile, going against every instinct in her body. “You think you’ve heard about the Shelby’s? It seems like you’ve missed out on some key details. Or maybe you just think that being young and pretty and rich will protect you. One word of this conversation to anyone, and they will find you. And then your face won’t be so pretty anymore.”

Constance was trembling slightly, and Lizzie felt viciously satisfied, but the spoiled young woman wasn’t quite done yet. Constance stuck her chin out.

“I pity you, you know. I can’t imagine what it was like, that this was better. Living with a man who would do those things.”

“Who would do what things? Hurt you?” Lizzie’s smile widened painfully. Her veins sung with sick joy, a tiny taste of revenge. She leaned in close but just high enough that the other woman had to stand on her toes to hear her whisper.

“If you say anything to anyone, when it’s all over, I'll ask him to touch me. With your blood still on his hands.” There was a brief, deathly silence. “Does that satisfy your curiosity, Constance?”

Lizzie stepped around her to return to the parlour, leaving her standing there, struck dumb.

“Oh, Lizzie, we thought you might have gotten lost!” Abigail crowed when she sat back down.

“No, no. I just met Constance in the lavatory and we had the most delightful little chat. Unfortunately, I think she might have taken a bit ill. She’s gone to lie down.” 

After that, Lizzie found it much easier to carry on the conversation. Constance did not return to the table, but at the end of the meal, the women made Lizzie promise that she would come again for tea the next week. Lizzie smiled, accepting graciously.

***

“Thomas Shelby, I’m going to murder you in your bed,” Lizzie said loudly as she entered the flat.

“Not Daddy, Miss Lissie,” Charlie said from the floor.

“Oh, hello, Charlie.” Lizzie bent down and picked him up. He was getting very heavy. “Don’t worry, I was only joking.”

“You say that now,” came Tommy’s voice from the door. “Run off and play, Charlie. Miss Lissie and I have something to discuss. Apparently.” He waited for Charlie to scamper out of the room. “I take it dinner did not go well? No more invitations to the height of London society?”

Lizzie bridled a little. “Actually, you’ll be pleased to hear I was invited back next week. That’s not the matter. You see, when I was coming back from the toilet, Constance Montague took it upon herself to inform me that you are a gangster.” Tommy raised one eyebrow ever so slightly.

“And what did you say?”

Lizzie blushed, but plowed on without hesitation. “I told her that if she started spreading rumours, you would cut her and then I’d fuck you covered in her blood. She left after that.”

Tommy, of course, gave no visible reaction. Lizzie herself cringed a bit. It sounded even worse now that it had when it had first come out of her mouth.

After a moment, Tommy said, “Well. I never took you for the type for such elaborate fantasies.” If only you knew, Lizzie thought, but what she said was:

“I thought you said I was a Shelby now.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments make the world go 'round.

**Author's Note:**

> Please review! I appreciate it.


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